Brinlin Isle Read online

  Chapter 6

  Marim walked through the restless fog, her mind full of contradictory thoughts. She was excited and Kix was agitated, made frantic by her emotional high.

  The escape from Embriem’s house had been close. Too close. Marim had never pushed so hard, never drawn so heavily on her bond with her tessila. She’d thought she would fail and Embriem would refuse to leave. The rector would find her hiding behind the couch, the fact Tassin’s body was an illusion would be discovered before they were all safely away.

  But those things hadn’t happened. At the very last moment, Marim’s passive persuasion spell had worked. Embriem had lit from the room like a startled rabbit. She’d taken two deep breaths and sidled to the wall to creep along in the shadows. It helped the sky was growing dark and the only light in the dim room came from the candles. It helped the sisters and the rector were all staring after Embriem as he barged out. They never saw Marim. She slipped out a different door, hurried down two long hallways, and met Vailria. Embriem was with her by then, gazing with confusion at Tassin, who lay propped against the wall.

  Vailria glanced at Marim and gave a curt nod. “Take the boy.”

  There was no arguing with that tone. Marim knelt and scooped young Tassin into her arms. He was not as heavy as a five-year-old boy should have been, but he also was not light. She cast a passive displacement spell so she could carry him with almost no effort. “Embriem,” she said, “it’s time to go.”

  But Embriem only stood, gazing blankly at the tile floor where his son had been sitting. Marim took a step towards the door, but he made no move to follow.

  Vailria made an impatient gesture, her face as stern and sharp as ever. “Go, Marim. There’s no time left for that boy. We’ll catch up.”

  Marim glanced at Embriem, expecting him to object, but his face had gone oddly and smooth, as if he wasn’t hearing them speak.

  So Marim was on her way, hurrying down the cobbled lane with Tassin in her arms. The air was alive around her, dense and roiling. Thunder growled in the distance. The very air seemed to tremble and quake.

  The houses she passed were mere outlines in the gloom. Her high emotions carried her, but beneath the pounding of her heart and the sense of urgency, Marim felt a growing fatigue. Kix, currently wheeling on the troubled air in high spirits, would be exhausted tomorrow. He’d probably go through the stitchring and sleep for an entire day.

  Marim was nearing the place where the lane that led to Embriem’s house met the town’s main thoroughfare when she heard the slap of hurrying feet behind her. At first, she was not alarmed. Vailria and Embriem should be joining her any minute now.

  The footfalls approached and slowed. Marim turned to see a single figure, a man, faceless in the fog. An unpleasant bolt of shock shot through her. This was neither Embriem nor Vailria. It was Cockram.

  This was such an unpleasant surprise, Marim lost her grip on her passive displacement spell. Tassin’s weight came onto her suddenly, making her stagger. She grimaced, gritted her teeth, and refocused. The boy’s body became light again. But now that undercurrent of fatigue she’d been feeling was deeper, more urgent, difficult to ignore.

  Cockram’s steady voice sounded out of the gloom. “Is that Marim? Marim of the Tessilari?” There was a note of contrived innocence in his tone that made Marim think he’d been lying in wait for her.

  But how? How could Cockram have guessed she’d be coming this way?

  She didn’t answer his question. She wasn’t trying to be rude, but she had no attention to spare for conversation. Kix was beginning to feel his fatigue. He flew down out of the restless sky and settled on her shoulder, where he sat glaring at Cockram.

  The man caught up and fell in step next to Marim, matching his stride to hers. He walked with her for a time, staring at the boy in her arms. “I don’t mean to pry.” His voice still had that theatrical quality, like an actor overplaying his roll, “But does Embriem know you have his son?”

  It was a reasonable enough question, Marim supposed. She was a stranger here. Cockram was not. He’d have heard all sorts of lurid stories about the Tessilari, some of them probably featuring harmless-seeming young women who kidnapped helpless children during strange storms.

  Still, it was annoying. Cockram gave no explanation for his presence on this street. He didn’t apologize for running out of the mist that way and startling her. Worse, she had no easy way to get rid of him. Annoyance swirled through her, causing her to lose her hold on her spell again. She had to stop for a moment and shift Tassin in her arms. He moaned as she adjusted him, but did not wake. As far as she knew, the boy hadn’t woken at all today. She worried it was too late, that he wouldn’t return to consciousness on the lake shore. If he couldn’t wake up, she didn’t think he could bond with a brinlin.

  Marim, determined not to distract herself with things she could worry about later, tried to weave her spell again. But she couldn’t get a grip on the magic. She could feel it there, just on the other side of her bond with Kix. But when she reached for it, it seemed to slide away, like beads of mercury slithering out of reach.

  She paused, gathered Tassin closer to her chest, and continued on. He wasn’t so heavy she couldn’t carry him without the spell.

  Cockram continued next to her, his broad forehead creased with concern. He spoke again, voice hesitant. “I’ve known Embriem since he was a boy, see. My wife was his wife’s aunt’s cousin, which makes me Tassin’s great uncle, or something.”

  They reached the town. As far as Marim could tell, the street was deserted. The fog around her was aglow with the light from many windows, but she saw no movement as she turned left and hurried for the path on the other side of the row of shops, the one she knew led to the warmlake.

  As Marim turned, Cockram did as well. She realized the man was not going to leave her alone, not until she gave him some kind of reassurance. She sighed. Her arms were growing fatigued. Tassin was a dead weight in her arms, limp and leaden. She spoke, unable to keep her annoyance out of her tone. “Embriem will be catching up with us any moment.”

  They hurried through the town, past one bright window after another. On the other side, the air seemed all the darker as the light fell behind. Marim reached the path that left the main thoroughfare, continuing down towards the warmlake. She turned onto it, trying again to gather the magic for the passive displacement spell.

  She almost had it. She could feel the magic there, tantalizing with its nearness. She was focused inward, intent on her spell. She was so distracted, she tripped on a hump in the trail and stumbled so hard, she fell to her knees.

  Pain lanced through her legs. Her mouth snapped shut and she bit her tongue. She struggled and barely caught her balance in time to save herself tumbling forward on top of Tassin.

  Shaken, even a little dazed, Marim knelt in the fog. There was a movement beside her. She looked up to see Cockram standing over her, his handsome face creased with sympathy. He spoke, his voice throbbing with concern. “Can I help in some way? Carry the boy, perhaps?”

  ✣

  From her position in the hall outside the drawing room, Vailria listened to the death prayer. The strain of holding the illusion was beginning to mount. As she concentrated on her work, the rhythm of the chant caused a slow boil of hatred to build inside her.

  For the most part, Vailria did not let the anger overtake her. For the most part, she forgave these people their ignorance and their vile lack of understanding. She was able to live on the fringe of their sad little society, doing her part to protect the forest and what lay hidden within. She couldn’t even entirely hold it against them, what they were doing now. Tassin was suffering. If there hadn’t been a way to save his life, helping him die would have been a kindness.

  But there was a way to save his life. And while Vailria was certain the sisters did not know about this, she was also confident someone in the church, someone powerful, did.

  Which meant this ceremony was sanctioned, delibera
te, murder.

  Or at least, it would have been had Vailria not intervened. Tassin was safe, even now being carried away by Marim. Vailria was holding the illusion of the boy in place, making everyone in the room believe he still lay on his couch, buying as much time as she could.

  They were close to the end of the prayer now. Vailria recognized the shift in the chant that meant it had entered its final phase. She put a hand on Embriem’s arm. The man had been standing near her, dazed. Passive persuasion, when clumsily done, had that effect sometimes. In the aftermath of the spell, it stole a person’s ability to act without guidance for a short while. He’d watched Marim leave with his son, encased in this strange, passive stillness.

  Vailria nodded towards the entryway and mouthed the words, “It’s time to go.”

  Embriem wavered, still stuck. Vailria had no time to reassure him. She concentrated, pouring as much magic as she could into the illusion in the other room. Then she cut ties with it, severing it from herself. It would lose coherence gradually now, fading to nothing within five to ten minutes.

  At which point, the jig would be up. Unless someone tried to touch it before then, and realized it was not solid.

  There was no time for delay. Vailria headed for the exit, steering Embriem with a firm hand. The man moved woodenly. She had to remind herself he had just been subjected to a spell, and he was well into the hunger himself – a crucial detail she’d been unaware of until the Tessilari girl had mentioned it. His arm felt taut and wiry beneath her fingers and his face was creased with pain and sorrow.

  They moved together through the silent house, reached the front door, and stepped into the thick air outside. As they moved up the drive, Embriem gained momentum, shouldering off the after effects of Marim’s spell. Vailria let her hand fall away. A moment later, the man spoke. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. What makes you think you can help? How will we explain when they realize Tassin is gone?”

  Vailria did not look at Embriem. She walked at a steady pace, taking comfort from Tok’s soft presence against her neck. It would not be easy to convince Embriem of what had to come next. He was an important man on this island, with family and wealth and a business to run. Nevertheless, Vailria was relieved to know she would not, after all, have to separate him and his son. She would take them both. Embriem would resist, but persuasion was one of Vailria’s strongest talents. That was why she’d been given the position here in the first place.

  Right now, Embriem was too scattered and confused to be worth talking to. The fog was wet, almost to the thickness of rain. Vailria pulled her hood up and began to walk faster. “We’ll talk when you and your son are both feeling better. For now, we have no time to waste. Tassin’s life is at stake, and yours is also. We must hurry.”

  They walked in silence until they reached town. The high street was deserted. They moved on as the air continued to thicken, flickering now with restless lightning.

  Embriem was pulling himself together. He’d been walking next to her with his long, even steps, but now he suddenly stopped short to stare at her with an expression of pure shock. Vailria stopped as well, watching as realization dawned in his face.

  “It’s the brinlin, isn’t it? Marim said Tassin needed a tessila to bond with, but that’s wrong. What he needs is a brinlin. You must have one too. Which means you can … you are …”

  Watching Embriem struggle, Vailria felt a small surge of guilt. He’d seen Tok once, long ago, along with many other things.

  She’d taken those memories from him. It was what she did. But if she hadn’t, his son would never have come so close to death.

  Vailria spoke in a cool, crisp tone. “Embriem,” she said. “I’ll explain everything later. Right now, there is no time.”

  She turned and began to walk again. She’d taken only a few steps when she felt the air come alive around her. A great ripple of magic passed over her, snaking across her skin with prickling intensity.

  She stopped, gasping and confused. It took her mind a moment to light on the only possible explanation. “Marim,” she whispered.

  Vailria began to run.

  ✣

  Cockram was many things, but a murderer was not one of them. He was a good man, a good husband, a good father. He’d spent his whole life contributing to the community here on Cynnes Tarth, and it was his sense of responsibility that drove him now.

  He’d come to a critical moment. He supposed if he was a different kind of man, a man violence came more naturally too, he could have done away with Marim in a straightforward matter. If he said he caught her trying to kidnap Tassin, said she attacked him when he questioned her, no one would challenge his story. No one would suggest he’d done anything other than what was right.

  Marim was taking Tassin to the warmlake, and she had to be stopped. What would have to happen would only be harder, more traumatic for everyone, if Tassin recovered from the hunger.

  Still, the thought of violently attacking a helpless woman who doubtless didn’t think she was doing anything wrong was more than Cockram could quite bring himself to do. So he considered his options as he kept pace with her, watching her closely. There was something wrong with her, he decided. She didn’t appear to be injured, but as he followed her through town and onto the path that led to the warmlake, she walked as if the weight of the emaciated child was too much for her to bear. He supposed it was too much to hope she would simply collapse of her own volition. If she made it all the way to the lake, he could drown her. But he couldn’t let her carry the boy that far.

  In the case of Cockram’s wife, it had been easy. As soon as he’d caught wind she was cheating on him with a trader from a nearby island—a man who Cockram had welcomed in his own establishment time and time again—Cockram had begun making plans. It all came together so nicely. The next time the trader appeared, he sat late at the bar, as was his habit. Cockram’s wife sweetly suggested her husband might go up to bed, as she often did when the common room was down to one or two patrons. Cockram kissed her, then magnanimously poured her and the trader a fine brandy before saying good night.

  The brandy was drugged. He got into bed, pretending to sleep. He heard his wife come up to check on him, then leave again. When he heard her lock up downstairs and slip out the back, he followed. She hurried through the foggy night to the trader’s small barge. Cockram stood on shore, shivering, and waited for all on board to go quiet.

  After that, it was child’s play to unslip the oars and set a small fire on the prow. As Cockram untethered the vessel from the dock, he felt a sense of pride. He was not a man who took his problems to the town hall, sapping resources and making a mockery of his family name. He was not a murderer. He was someone who delivered justice.

  He’d given the barge a firm push and watched it dissolve into the fog.

  The situation now was trickier. He hadn’t had time to prepare. He kept pace with the girl as she made her way nearer and nearer to the warmlake. He was beginning to think he would have to intervene directly, no matter how distasteful that might be, when Marim tripped and fell to her knees.

  While planning and strategy were Cockram’s strengths, he wasn’t half bad at improvisation. Feigning concern, he offered his help. Then he waited as Marim seemed to consider. At last, she nodded and sat back, prepared to hand over the boy.

  Crouching in the damp grass, Cockram collected Tassin into his own arms. He felt a momentary shock at the scant weight of the child, the sharp jut of elbows and hips. He snugged the boy against his chest and stood, looking down at Marim. She gazed up, dazed. Her voice came out thin and wobbly, but infused with a note of urgency. “Take him to the warmlake. He must get to the shore, near the reeds. Hurry.”

  Cockram should have left it there. In the months that followed, with everything that was to come, he would regret this moment. It would have been so easy. The fog was thick and dark, the air heavy. All he would have had to do was turn around, take the boy, carry him away. He could have set
out as if doing what she asked. Once out of Marim’s sight, he could have taken Tassin anywhere, done nothing, and the boy would have died.

  Instead, he looked at Marim. He thought about the scars he’d seen on her neck. He wondered what crimes a person would need to commit to end up so marked. He knew, intuitively, she would cause trouble for him if he left her here now. She knew too much, was bent on interfering. The rector would have to keep an eye on her, tally the marks up until he could act. By then, who knows how much damage she’d have done?

  She was not a large person. Her neck was so slender. It wouldn’t be difficult, he thought, to deal with her here and now. She was so out of it already, maybe she wouldn’t even fight.

  Cockram walked a short distance away, stooped again and set the boy in the grass. He was gentle: as gentle as he’d been with his own daughter when she’d been small and he’d lifted her in and out of her crib. It wasn’t the boy’s fault, what was happening to him, any more than it had been Adni’s fault.

  Marim, still kneeling, looked up as Cockram returned, an expression of confusion on her face. As he reached out and gently set his strong hands around her slender neck, he saw realization and fear flash through her eyes. She recoiled from him, trying to push herself to her feet.

  But it was too late. Cockram’s large, strong hands closed about her throat, and he began to squeeze.

  ✣

  There was something wrong. It wasn’t to do with Tassin, who was so weak now he barely responded even when Marim almost dropped him. It wasn’t to do with Cockram, who was behaving very strangely indeed. It was something to do with Marim herself, and her bond with Kix. She felt as if the world had become thin – her presence in it somehow tenuous.

  After she fell to her knees, she saw she could go no further. She accepted Cockram’s offer of help, and felt him ease the boy’s narrow body out of her arms. Unburdened, she felt a surge of relief. It didn’t matter who took the boy to the warmlake as long as he got there very soon.

  As Cockram walked off to follow her instructions, Marim closed her eyes and tried to recover her senses. Kix was unusually far away from her. She could feel him. He was flying high in the foggy sky, pursuing some purpose she couldn’t decipher. She knelt on the narrow path, feeling the damp seep into her skirts. She was certain she’d never been so tired. Even at the academy, she’d never managed so many spells in one day, certainly not so many effective spells.

  She supposed it was over-extension. She’d seen other students at the academy turn woozy and dazed when they pushed themselves too hard or too long. The condition could be fatal. Certainly at the academy it was taken seriously. Those affected were rushed to the infirmary and attended around the clock by at least one healer.

  Out here, in the fog, Marim was alone. She comforted herself with knowing, if she died, she’d have done so helping someone. If Tassin lived, the people here would have to learn from his experience. They’d see the brinlin for what they were. They would celebrate the great gift they’d had in their very midst all this time. It wasn’t such a terrible thing to die for. And really, hadn’t Marim thought, many times, death wouldn’t be such a horrible thing?

  She heard the soft thump of a boot on earth.

  Confused, she looked up. Cockram was still there, standing over her. And where was Tassin? She couldn’t see him. Marim felt her mind bend with confusion. How long had she been kneeling here? Had Cockram already gone to the warmlake? Was he returning now, to carry her as well?

  Looking up, Marim saw a strange glint against his neck scarf, a wink of light on gold. A thought sprang into her head. He’s come back. He’s come back, and he’s going to kill me.

  Marim tasted sour fear. She strained to see through the fog. Though Cockram’s features were dim in the fuzzy air, there was no mistaking his hard expression. For a moment, his face seemed to blur into another face – the face of a man she remembered all too well. Nylan, the handler who could have, would have, killed her.

  Terrified, Marim meant to scramble to her feet. But it was no good. Her body was heavy, her mind dull. As she felt Cockram’s hands close about her throat, she wondered if he could feel her scars through the thin fabric of her blouse.

  She didn’t struggle. She was too weak to shake him off, too tired to fight. She couldn’t breathe. Gray spots were blooming over her vision. She closed her eyes, giving in. She didn’t know why this man was trying to kill her, but it didn’t matter now.

  She felt Kix before she heard him, felt his attention snap back from the vague state of mind that had led him to fly so high into the stormy sky.

  Marim’s tessila noticed her predicament. He was confused by it at first, but when he realized what was happening, a great bloom of rage ripped through his psyche.

  At the academy, Marim had heard many people say there was a mismatch between the tiny size of the tessili and the huge emotions they felt. This had been one of the theories put forth by one of the professors as to why Kix couldn’t shift. Whatever had happened to him, whatever had broken in his head or his soul when he and Marim almost died, his feelings were muted. He felt things, but not the way other tessili did. Even when angry, he was easily distracted. He would flit from one emotion to the next like a butterfly sampling blooms.

  Now, Marim was dying. She was not only dying, she was being murdered. This was enough to fill even Kix with focused rage.

  As her eyes filled with blackness and her ears began to pound, Marim lost track of everything except Kix and his building feeling of towering rage.

  Kix was coming, and he was incensed. Marim had never picked up on such a distinct emotion from her tessila before. It rippled through her, pushing back some of the fog in her mind. She began to struggle, heaving against Cockram’s hands with a great surge. His grip slipped enough she was able to suck in one shallow breath.

  She heard Cockram swear, felt the hands clamp down again.

  As he did, Kix reached them. The tiny tessila plunged out of the shifting fog and threw himself at Cockram’s face to claw furiously at the man’s right eye. It was such a senseless attack, it broke Marim’s heart. Kix was nothing next to the strong, bulky man. He was a minnow attacking a pike, a mouse trying to savage a dire.

  Cockram swore again. He shook his head like a horse trying to dislodge a fly. Then his body went rigid. He screamed and his hands released their terrible grip. Marim felt Kix’s swell of pleasure as he bit and clawed into the eye, his needle-like talons ripping and tearing, his teeth drawing forth pale fluid.

  There was a dull slap: a hand smacking against skin. Then, there was pain. Overwhelming pain.

  It wasn’t Marim’s pain this time. It was Kix’s.

  Cockram slapped his hand against his own face, Kix’s tiny body caught between. The tessila’s back snapped under the force of the blow.

  Wings limp, Kix tumbled out of the air. Marim saw him fall. His body was a smudge of muted yellow on the gray air. He fell in a twist, turning wing over wing, to land like an autumn leaf in the dewy grass.

  He lay there, forelegs clawing uselessly at the damp blades. His anger faded to confusion. He tried to right himself, tried to come to her.

  He couldn’t make it. His wings were too heavy, his legs too weak. He let out a thin, helpless cry.

  Marim’s tessila was dying.

  She wanted to lie down next to him. She wanted to cup his delicate, broken body in her hands. She wanted to thank him for choosing her, for surviving all this time when some stronger, more spectacular tessila had given up. She wanted to apologize for never finding a way to heal him.

  But Cockram’s hands were on her throat again. They were damp now, warm and sticky with blood. Good, Marim thought. I hope he loses that eye.

  She couldn’t breathe. The gray blooms were back. Marim closed her eyes, ready to let go. Her mind wandered back to her years at the academy, the way all the other girls had spoken so fondly of their tessili. In the years after the kidnapping, Marim had always been a little embarrasse
d by Kix – his simple nature, his scarred hide. She tended to conceal him from the other girls, much as she concealed her scarred throat.

  But, in the end, it was Kix who had fought for them, not Marim. As her ears began to pound again, Marim felt her heart swell with a new emotion. Kix was a tenuous spark at the edge of her consciousness now, but she pushed a thought towards him, along with an emotion she’d never felt before. Or, at least, hadn’t felt since that terrible day Nylan had locked a collar around her throat. I love you, Kix. Thank you. I love you.

  The world went black. There was an instant of nothing. Then the very earth seemed to split apart as a surge of magic rippled through the charged air.

  There was a roar. Marim heard it even with her muffled ears.

  Suddenly, Cockram’s hands were gone. She could breathe again, barely. She gasped and choked. Her throat was raw, constricted, swollen. But she could breathe. She sucked in one glorious constricted breath, then another.

  She heard the sound of a scuffle, muffled curses, running feet.

  Then, all went quiet as Marim’s world faded to black.

  ✣

  Vailria was running, careening down the path that sloped towards the warmlake, Embriem tramping behind her. The air flickered around her, but the roar she heard wasn’t the growl of thunder. It was something else – a sound she’d never heard.

  Tok was agitated. He was uncomfortable, for one thing. He’d been out of the water too long. He was scared as well, uncertain about the pulses of magic he could feel but not understand. He clung to her collar, chittering with anxiety. She could do little to sooth him. She didn’t have any more answers than he did.

  In the thick air ahead, Vailria saw a figure. She stopped, staring, as a man stumbled towards her. He hurried, limping, head down, hand clamped over one side of his face. When he noticed Vailria and Embriem, he froze in place for an instant. Then he left the path, melting into the fog as if he’d never been there at all.

  Embriem caught up, coming to a stop beside her. “What is it? Why have we stopped?”

  Vailria’s heart was pounding. She stared into the fog. “Who was that?”

  But Embriem hadn’t seen, and there was no time. Vailria began to walk again. There was no more roaring, but the angry bellows had been replaced by a steady rumble that charged the restless air.

  They walked on. The path was wet, water beginning to run in rivulets down the slope. Vailria’s hair was heavy and chilled, her skirts sodden. She wanted nothing more than to be in her little house, lighting a fire and feeling Tok’s quiet contentment as he swam in the warm water beneath the floorboards.

  Up ahead, Vailria made out another shape in the fog. It was a second person, this one sitting on the trail. Nearby stood a strange creature. It was not terribly large – perhaps the size of a small hound. It had a long, sinuous body and neck, a sharp head. And wings.

  Vailria stopped dead in her tracks. The rumble, she realized, was a low, angry growl. And she could make out another noise now: a thin, persistent cough.

  Next to her, Embriem cursed quietly. “What in the name of Priam?”

  Vailria began to move again. The fog was a restless screen between her and the two shapes. As she neared, the animal saw them and stepped in their direction, wings flared threateningly. The figure turned stiffly to look over her shoulder, spoke a few quiet words, and began to cough again.

  It was Marim. There was no mistaking her. The creature next to her must be her tessila, grown to many times its normal size.

  The animal was clearly incensed. Vailria could feel the rage boiling off him, curdling the misty air. His yellow scales were slick with damp, his eyes sharp and intelligent.

  Vailria was so surprised, her thoughts stilled to nothing. It was Embriem who spoke. He’d stopped as well, hesitant to approach the massive, enraged tessila. “Marim,” he called. “Where’s Tassin?”

  The girl made as if to answer, but her words were overcome by more coughing. She struggled to her feet, swaying, and set a hand on her tessila’s scaled shoulder. She wobbled forward, unsteady as a newborn colt, her creature pressed close against her legs. As she approached, Vailria felt her heart constrict.

  Something had happened to this girl. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her lips swollen. The collar of her blouse was askew and the dark smudges of bruises were beginning to form on the pale skin of her throat.

  Vailria remembered the man, the one who had melted away into the fog. Her heart began to pound. What had happened?

  Embriem took a step forward, his concern for his boy outweighing his fear of the overgrown tessila. “Marim.” His voice was urgent. “My son. Where is he?”

  Marim was close enough now Vailria could see blood vessels had burst in her eyes, making the whites dark and blotched. She shook her head, her expression lost. She croaked out a few words. “I don’t know.”

  Embriem moved ahead, hurrying around her on the path. Vailria hesitated, not sure where she was needed most. She looked at Marim, but the girl waved a hand, indicating she should follow Embriem then turning to totter in that direction herself.

  Together, the two women walked through the fog. They came upon Embriem a moment later. He was kneeling to one side of the path, a dark, flat outline of a man. They were close enough to the lake now Vailria could hear the sigh of the wind in the reeds, the gentle shush of the water. She felt a swell of longing, Tok’s desire to go: to swim and climb and rest. But he would not leave her now, not when so much was unknown.

  Embriem’s shoulders were bowed. He heard them approach, and half turned. His face was streaked with tears. In front of him, Vailria could see Tassin’s crumpled form, his body arranged as if it had been dropped with no greater care than a bundle of reeds. He lay half on his back, face partway pressed against the damp grass, one arm out flung, the other folded beneath his body.

  Again, Vailria thought of the man. She glanced at Marim, taking in the swollen lips, the bloodshot eyes, the bruised neck. Someone had tried to kill them, Marim and Tassin both.

  Embriem’s voice was choked and small. He knelt near his son, hands hovering as if he was afraid to touch the frail body. Then, gently, he adjusted Tassin so he lay on his back, arms tidy at his sides. “I think he’s dead. He’s not dead, is he?”

  Vailria took a step towards them. That was when she noticed the brinlin.

  There was a movement in the grass by her foot, so small she would not have noticed except Tok perked up with sharp interest. Her attention drawn, Vailria looked more closely. She saw the tiny creature struggling through the grass, hauling itself between the damp stems with its ill-suited webbed feet. It was orange with darker spots, blue, or purple maybe. She stared at it for a time, mystified. She’d never seen a brinlin leave the lake.

  The grass next to the orange brinlin twitched. Vailria saw another, this one yellow with pale spots. Behind that came another, and another. There were dozens of them, all making their slow way from the lake towards Tassin.

  “Embriem.” Vailria spoke in a measured, steady tone, desperately aware now of his huge, clumsy feet in their thick-soled boots. Had he already crushed a brinlin, never seeing it in the fog?

  It began to rain then – real rain rather than just soupy air. It hardly mattered; Vailria was already drenched through. “Embriem, I don’t think he’s dead. You mustn’t move, though. The brinlins have felt him here. They’re coming to him. They’re all around you now. One among them might be the one who can save your son’s life. If you move, you could crush her.”

  Embriem went very still. Marim, too, stiffened and began to stare down at the ground with a look of disbelief. She spoke, her words a hoarse croak. “They’re everywhere.”

  They were everywhere. It seemed a hundred brinlins were gathering around Tassin. They were excited. One after the other, they released their light, mewling cries. Vailria felt a rush of awe, coupled with a small pang of guilt. No brinlin from this lake had bonded with a human in years.

  In the grass, Tassin
lay like a carcass. His skin was pale and slick in the rain. His hair was stuck to his forehead. Vailria couldn’t make out any rise and fall of his chest. His eyes were closed. Surely, he still lived. Didn’t he?

  Marim was moving forward, picking her way one delicate step at a time towards Tassin. She reached the boy, knelt beside Embriem, and put a hand on the boy’s forehead. “He’s not dead.” Her voice was a painful rasp that made Vailria wince. “Alive, but just.”

  Embriem surged to his feet, but remembered the brinlins. He stood rooted in place, swaying like a tree in a storm. “Do something. We must …”

  “Embriem,” Marim cut him off, her voice hoarse and wheezing. “Embriem, look down.”

  The man cut off midsentence. His body, alive with agitation, went still. He froze and fell silent, staring down at his foot.

  A brinlin had crawled out of the grass. She perched on the humped leather of his boot’s toe, delicate gills quivering in the rain. Her slick hide was pale blue, smattered over with silvery dots, luminous in the fog.

  Rain ran into Vailria’s eyes. She wiped it away. Slowly, as if in a trance, Embriem bent and offered the tiny creature his hand. The brinlin sniffed his fingers, flared her gills, and climbed into his palm. “Nel.” Embriem spoke the word in a bemused tone, barely audible over the hissing rain and the sighing reeds. He looked at Marim, eyes wide with wonder. “Her name is Nel.”

  ✣

  Marim was more than a little confused. First, there was her location. She was down by the warmlake, out in a downpour, wet to the skin. She had no idea how she’d ended up here. It seemed a moment ago she’d been in Embriem’s house, trying to persuade him to leave the illusion of Tassin behind. Then, the next thing she knew, she was collapsed in the grass and Kix was all but overwhelmed with vicious anger.

  Someone else had been there, at first – a looming figure in the fog. There’d been a scuffle and a shriek. Kix had come to her out of the wet air, scales shining, the size of a dog.

  That fact alone had been surprise enough. In her years at the academy, Marim had spent countless hours trying to get Kix to shift. Every professor in the place had tried to help. They’d set up scenario after scenario, attempting to ignite different emotions, different desires. The theory had been that, since tessili healed themselves completely each time they changed size, whatever was wrong in Kix might be repaired if they could only get him to enlarge.

  It had never worked. Marim had given up hope it ever would. Now, here in this sodden place, he stood before her with a wingspan as long as she was tall.

  It was mind-bending, to say the least. But Kix wasn’t the only mystery. Marim’s body had taken a beating. Her throat felt raw and bruised. Her voice, when she tried to speak, was hoarse and choking. She had a persistent desire to cough. She had a vague memory of pressure – a vice on her throat. But that was all she could recall.

  And there wasn’t time to sort any of it out. Vailria and Embriem had appeared, asking questions she couldn’t answer. Now, Tassin lay before her, pale and inert. His skin, when she touched it, was cold and waxy.

  The boy needed help, and quickly. Marim closed her eyes, preparing a healing spell. Underneath her confusion and the pain of her throat, she was aware of a new sensation. It was an undercurrent in her mind, a dull roar in her psyche. She’d noticed it as soon as she’d come to on the ground, but she hadn’t had a chance to try to figure out what it was.

  Now, as Marim reached for her magic, she understood.

  It was Kix. Or rather, it was the power Kix’s existence allowed her to wield. Always before, his reserves had been shallow, the energy he offered a little listless.

  Not so now. As Marim drew her focus down, she felt electrified with his energy.

  It had worked as her professors had hoped. Kix had shifted, healing both himself and their bond.

  She almost laughed with delight. So this is what it felt like. This was what casting was for everyone else. The sensation of all that power was electrifying. Marim had to resist the urge to seize at it in sheer, greedy, anticipation. Possibilities crowded into her mind, filling her with a desire to experiment. For a moment, she was overwhelmed with a giddy sense of triumph. That’s Kix, she realized. I’m feeling what he’s feeling, and he’s awfully proud of himself.

  Embriem said something. Marim was too caught up in her bond with Kix to make him out, but his voice pulled her back to the task at hand. Later, she promised her tessila. A little later we’ll have some fun, see what we can do.

  This thought seemed to please Kix. He settled in the grass, content to wait. Marim once again narrowed her focus down to the boy.

  Tassin was alive, and he was surrounded by brinlins. They had formed a ring in the grass around him, dozens and dozens of the tiny creatures. She could feel them nudging at Tassin, sending out little probes of hopeful magic, trying to get him to latch onto one of them. But the boy was too weak. He was weak, he was unconscious, and his body was moments away from death.

  He needed a boost. He needed a restoration of vitality. Fortunately, Marim had spent nearly her whole life studying the healing arts, and now she had Kix’s new power to back her spells.

  Marim set her hands on Tassin’s forehead, one on either side. She drew in a long, slow breath, gathered her threads of magic, wove the spell, and released.

  The surge of magic she sent into Tassin surprised even her. The boy snapped upright as if jerked by puppet strings. Vailria’s voice snapped from nearby in the rain. “Be careful, boy. They’re all around you.”

  Marim let her hands fall back to her sides. Tassin’s hair was a sodden mop. Water ran in rivulets down his face. He was blinking and staring and quivering with shock. For a moment, his face was vague, his expression disoriented.

  Then he looked down at a brinlin that had crawled onto his hand, and his face lit with a soft, ecstatic smile.