eighteen
Despite shaking things up with Sulim, Mira was not in the mood to stick around for anything that might explode should her lover confess to the household. She avoided dinner that night, went to bed early, and got up to begin the long walk to town once the twilight broke.
She was pretty sure she was the first one up. Not even Sulim or one of the younger morning maids beat her.
Good one, Mira. She was still quite chuffed with herself a whole day later, which didn’t surprise her.
Romantic conquest had always been her forte, whether she wanted a short fling or a long-term affair.
And from the way she practically skipped down the road toward town, she was looking forward to a nice, long thing with Sulim.
Assuming they could keep it quiet while constantly flirting and playing footsie beneath the dinner table.
Because that was probably happening.
She didn’t care about the husband. She sure as shit didn’t care how her mother would react if she found out.
Mira had been in the middle of more tumultuous storms than she liked to admit, including in prison, but they now rolled down her back as if she were impervious to the damp chill of rain.
Speaking of… It was a beautiful morning. Not a cloud in the sky.
As soon as she arrived in town, she went straight to the Temple, where life had begun to stir, and the priest, Kanhith, welcomed her in the entryway with his gaze cast over her shoulder.
“Just me right now,” she cheerily told the man who wasn’t that much younger than her.
Arrah is a cushy post, but we’re still in the middle of nowhere.
Kanhith must have impressed the right people, but he was still too green for something like Arrah’s main planetary Temple.
Mira envied him. If I had started somewhere like here, everyone would have screamed nepotism, but I wouldn’t have gone to prison.
“I’m here to see Master Marlow. Is he in?”
“I heard him making tea in the back.” Kanhith stepped to the side so Mira could enter the Temple. “Unfortunately, the walls from the staff area and beyond are as thin as our nails.”
“Guess we’ll keep the partying to a minimum, then.”
Mira helped herself to the guest apartment in the back, which was separate from the priest’s quarters.
She discovered her so-called uncle in nothing but trousers and an open shirt, shuffling through his kitchen with his eyes half-open and scruff on his face.
The man had facial hair in the past, but the one thing about Ramaron’s hygiene was that he either went all-in on beards or kept it shaved.
Depends on how much he hates getting older in the moment.
Mira could relate. She disparaged makeup since she was convinced it made her look older.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Ramaron didn’t quite jump out of his skin when he saw her standing in his doorway, but he still wasn’t impressed. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to take in the view, you masculine specimen.”
She accepted his offering of morning-brewed tea.
As he prepared it—and she assured him that Joiya was not right behind her—she perused the sitting table in the living area that was currently covered in papers.
Notes? She was familiar with both his and her mother’s handwriting as well as her own father’s, and it surprised her to see a smattering of Nerilis Dunsman’s comments interspersed with Joiya’s fine hand and Ramaron’s hasty scrawls.
As much as she loved the idea of them being embarrassing love notes between the three of them, Mira was further entranced by what looked like research records.
“Since when does my father have time to help you two with your research?” Mira lowered a note back to the table. The last thing she saw was, “…The perfect alignment would be in a few months. What do we do with that?” in her mother’s hand. “What’s all this, anyway?”
Ramaron shuffled her toward the bistro table against the wall, the only eating surface that was kept clear in an apartment he had only occupied for a few days.
At the sound of her voice, Chayo wandered out of the bedroom, yawning with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
Mira was compelled to bend down and rub the dog’s face as he patiently waited for his breakfast.
“Research,” was Ramaron’s deadpan reaction as he brought over two cups of tea and returned to the kitchen for the dog food.
“Your mother has me running ragged, changing course on our old research. I’ve salvaged these from my office.”
The dog was more than delighted to get some breakfast.
“She can’t make up her mind what she wants me to do. First, it was soulmates. Then, it was veils to the Void. Then she starts on about Crossing. Do you know what that is?”
“Sure.” Mira sipped the hot tea that could have used some sugar, but her uncle seemed to have forgotten that. “I’ve come across that a few times, but not since the Academy.” She shrugged. “Or sneaking my mother’s notes for fun.”
“Uh-huh. And mine, apparently.”
“Ooh, and Father’s. All the time.”
“Hmm.”
“Anyway, it’s the concept of fusing two different realities, right?”
“Close.” Yawning, Ramaron sat across from her, albeit with nowhere near as much energy as his visitor. “The more I’ve read up on it over the years, I think the ancestors were referring to sliding one dimension into another.”
“Into a parallel world?”
“Yes. Expend enough spiritual energy near a veil, and you could potentially do it. But… honestly, I would think it might take every julah in existence spread across the universe to do something like that. I think your mother is more interested in micro-Crossing.
Which is what we’ve dubbed the concept of sliding a few people into another reality.”
“Well, that’s interesting.”
“Your father was the one who realized something interesting, indeed. A while back.”
Ramaron yawned again. “No matter how parallel another world is, the way time and space work… well, odds are good you either slide forward or backward in time. Maybe only a few years if the realities aren’t too far apart.”
“I remember Master Obello lecturing about how nobody has ever visited another dimension and come back.”
“You must misremember. We do that with pocket dimensions all the time.”
“Come on, you know what I mean.” Mira continued to grumble. “Not that you weirdos ever taught me how to make a pocket dimension.”
“Didn’t your mother tell you? That’s what we’re celebrating when you lose the tattoo.”
“I cannot tell if you’re joking or not.”
“Neither can I. I’m so tired I could collapse, and I just got up.”
“Is she coming over later?”
“Yes. She wants to know what I found last night when going through our notes.”
“What a taskmaster!”
“So, why are you here? If your mother didn’t come with you, I mean. I get you wanting to stretch your legs and see some different scenery.”
Mira had come to unload about a few things, but all the talk about her mother had brought her back to that recent day when she revealed a side of herself that Mira had never seen before—and attempted to curb from memory.
“Do you know what a Dreamwalker is?” she led with.
Of course, a man of Ramaron’s sorceric caliber knew what a Dreamwalker was, but he claimed to have never been visited by one, nor did he know of any recorded visit from a Dreamwalker in untold generations.
They had supposedly died off sometime in the early Second Epoch.
Granted, this is the Second Epoch, but it’s been going on for like a million years.
Mira waited a moment before deciding to tell him that she had supposedly been visited by one. When he incredulously looked at her, she explained, in detail, what the woman had said and how Joiya had reacted when her daughter told her.
That made Ramaron instantly wake up. And pale right before Mira.
“What?”
He slowly shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Nah, what?”
“Nothing relevant.”
She was not assuaged by this. “Does the name ‘Rahara’ mean anything to you?”
Ramaron thought on it a moment. “No. Why?”
“The Dreamwalker claimed to be named Rahara. Ma recognized it and said that she was one of the Founders.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Right? How does Ma know the names of the Founders? Nobody does!”
He looked like he wanted to tell her something right there.
Maybe, “Your mother knows things nobody else does, obviously,” but that would only confuse the matter more.
As the two of them gazed at each other—Mira in curiosity, Ramaron in agitation—he finally said, “Your mother has been acting very strangely since she called me. Strangely, even for her, I mean.”
“I think it’s safe to say that my mother has been acting ‘strange’ since my last incident.” Mira suddenly chuckled. “Which reminds me. I’m in trouble again.”
Ramaron almost dropped his cup.
Mira assured him that she hadn’t killed anyone again. When he told her to stop saying things others could hear, Mira had distracted herself with scratching Chayo’s head. She told her favorite male role model that she had begun an affair with Lord Gardiah’s daughter-in-law.
“Not even Ma knows, and I should probably keep it that way,” Mira said. “But I had to tell somebody. Something’s different about her.”
“Mira.”
“It’s the worst that she’s a human. And married, I guess, but the human thing is more annoying. She’s young now, but you know how humans are.”
“Mira.”
“I think she’s worth getting in trouble with. She’s not actually in love with her husband. They have a marriage of convenience. For them, I mean. The family is not super keen on her.”
Ramaron pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mira, I swear to the Void, you have put this burden on me because you think I’m not overweight enough.”
“Ah, come on, you look great.”
“I mean it. I get you want to share, but I’ve got enough on my plate, with your mother…”
He saw the downturned look on Mira’s face and immediately stopped.
“Gee, thanks,” she said. “You know, I thought that if anyone would understand what it was like to court someone totally unavailable…”
“Don’t start with me. It’s way too early.”
“I’ve got Ma acting like a lunatic; meanwhile, I’m sneaking around with the future Lady Gardiah like we’re gonna run off together.”
“At least you can’t go to prison for either.”