#kalna

• • •

At least the Prince had smiled when he handed down Inkias’s sentence; smirked, almost. For offending the Prince’s sister but paying a compliment to his brother, what might have been months back out on border duty has been commuted to months on duty in the city guard.

It is not so uncommon. Most of the court had laughed too, because what had Inkias been thinking? One does spurn the prince’s sister, not when all she wants is a dance. But gripped by madness, Inkias had done just that, and now he’s enjoying his first night on guard in the outer city, banished from the Prince’s royal dinners and dances. Instead of bright silks and dashing capes, Inkias is dressed up in the distinctive red-brown uniform of the guard, complete with a bone mask with tusks. He’s supposed to be in the inner city, patrolling the city’s quieter street, but Inkias takes his duty seriously, even if it is a punishment and half in jest, and submitted his name to the rotating lists like a true knight-guard. 

In the outer city, Inkias is not quite so safe as the court thinks he is. His partner for the late watch — standing on the opposite street corner, similarly dressed in uniform red-brown and masked (though her mask has curling, elegant horns and painted blue circles where it hides her eyes) — is not on the rotating lists, but a longstanding and permanent outer city guard. So not quite so unsafe as the court would think, should they learn where Inkias is. He will be supported by one of the best the outer city guard has.

"Don't expect a quiet night," she had warned him when they first headed out to relieve the evening watch. Inkias could feel her eyes, behind the painted blue dots, fixed on him; she had a skeptical gaze, even through the mask.

But Inkias had prepared himself. He practices expanding and focusing his vision through the mask. All warmasks are the same in basic construction: made of smooth bone that covers the eyes, they are laced with sight-spells to make up for the obstruction. That part is necessary because any break in the bone — holes for eyes, for example — interferes with the other spells. Inkias finds that each mask begins to develop its own functional quirks after a while, and his new tusked mask is no exception. If he weren’t a knight, sometimes Inkias thinks of being a spell-researcher…

He feels the shift in the air even before the noise reaches their ears: a steady thud-thud, the rhythmic pounding of someone running along hard-packed dirt. If he’s honest, he's known something was coming since the night before, when the laughter gripped him and he danced with the prince's brother.

Inkias holds himself at the ready as someone dashes out onto the main street at full tilt, maybe two blocks down from Inkias’s post. The runner — a man —slows to scan the area, then turns sharply when he sees the bone masks and the red-brown jackets. He sprints over to them, and when he gets close enough to see properly, Inkias realizes that no amount of readying himself that could have prepared him.

The wind bellows out of his lungs, as if his chest were constricted by tight bands just as he took a new breath, and he can hear himself saying something, but it isn't him, Inkias; it is himself, and the words come clear now, ringing with purpose and power in his ears.

I will always know you. 

And so Inkias does, because it was not just his power that hammered his will into something mightier than the cycles. He remembers those words and he remembers the foreign power as it twined with his, like a breath of laughter on the back of his neck, like arms reaching to hug him from behind and hold him up — almost, Inkias thinks incongruously, like madness that had seized him the night before and made him spurn the prince's sister.

I will always know you. 

Inkias knows the man even before he turns to Inkias, gasping for air after his mad dash. He is tall and broad-shouldered, with dark curly brown hair, and Inkias can’t see the color of his eyes because he staggers, head dropping as he braces his hands on his knees as he tries to rein in his breath.

“Will you help, Guard?” he asks, when he can say it in more than a wheeze. He doesn’t lift his head.

Inkias has memorized the forms, as any knight of the city has. “I swear to help you within my power and within the bounds of the law, in the Prince’s name and by my honor. Who calls for aid? I answer for the Third Light.”

The man freezes, a momentary stillness that could have been another struggle for breath. Inkias knows he hears the difference. City guards only ever swear to aid within the bounds of the law, because it is the law that sends them out into the streets and pays them for their efforts, and they rarely invoke the prince — let alone one of the gods of the Orders. Inkias can practically see the resigned annoyance radiating from his fellow guard, though she doesn’t move an inch.

“I call,” the man says shortly, and then the rest of his words tumble out with a strange, desperate, defensive rush. “I am Akai. My mother is — she was home, when they came to rob us. Will you come and help?”

Inkias makes the right signals to his partner, if awkwardly, then tells Akai, “I will follow you.”

As if he could say anything else.  

Akai leaves at a run.

Inkias wonders if he should have expected the bar that comes crashing down on him from behind.

• • •

I’m a real bastard, aren’t I?

We have both been known to make mistakes.

• • •

It strikes the back of his head, but the back of Inkias’s head is not so unarmored as it appears. 

They’re a few blocks away from Inkias’s partner when the bar slams into him from behind and Inkias pitches forward. His head rings, but the shield that shimmered into existence on contact protects him from most of the force. His mask feels brittle on his face though, nearly spent for the moment, the spells sending out alarms in his vision, and Inkias knows he should avoid another of those.  

Rolling as soon as he hits the ground, the knight twists nimbly, getting back up to his feet in a low crouch. Then he lunges for his attacker’s knees; it takes a split-second thought to get the attacker’s studded baton in his hands, and then he raps it sharply against the man’s temple as he falls down. Inkias is moving so quickly he thinks Akai won’t notice — it was a quiet, swift wish already half-true when he made it. Inkias swings the stolen baton at the second of the four men who've attacked him.  

They’re in a narrow alleyway walled by the brick of various houses jammed together, some blank walls and others set with side-doors. A few of them open at the noise, and Inkias bites back a sigh when he sees more four or five more men spill out into the alleyway out of the corner of his eye.

It doesn’t distract him from his main task: armed now with the baton, Inkias uses his sheathed sword as a club and lays about with both weapons, taking particular care to bruise knees, stomachs, elbows and wrists. He’s forced to break the fourth brawler’s collarbone when those coming out from the houses wade into the fray, but all in all, it is fairly quick fight. Inkias is a fully-trained knight, taught how to manage his odds and take on multiple opponents at once, a veteran of the twilight borders, and these aren't very skilled fighters; he doesn’t need to draw his blade on them. 

Soon the night air is still and silent except for the groans of the downed men; two who can flee stumble off, but Inkias doesn’t give chase. He tries to remember their backs, and then shifts to begin tying up the men still laid about where they fell.

He’s pleasantly surprised to find Akai still around. Apparently Inkias’s success isn’t only due to an imbalance in training. He’s had allies, judging from the baton Akai now wields with a confident grip and the two men down at his feet. Akai has an older woman by his side as well, frazzled but not hysterical as Inkias might have expected. She does look like Akai; like his mother. Inkias wants to give him the benefit of the doubt.

It's not betrayal if they don’t know each other.

“I must summon the others to bring these in,” he says, working his way through the new prisoners on the street, and perhaps cheating just a little, because wishing the bindings on already-captured men is a small thing, and some fluttering part of Inkias dares not to hide. Will Akai notice?

When he’s done lays a flat, metal disc on the ground, then goes to stand by Akai and his mother. The disk raises itself from the ground and begins spinning rapidly, creating the illusion of a sphere hovering in the air. Through the sight-spells, Inkias can see the flare the messenger-disk sends up into the sky. The others will come, soon.

“Are you going to run?” Inkias asks, turning to look from the flare to Akai and his mother.

They share a look, then try talking at the same time. “Please, my son only—“ “Look, sir, I didn’t have—“

They fall silent again almost immediately. Another speaking glance passes between mother and son, and Inkias suddenly thinks he knows what’s being said.

“You will not be in danger,” he assures Akai and his mother without hesitation. “You stayed to help.” Inkias was distracted at the beginning of the fight, and he doesn’t know how Akai got his mother away from the brawlers, or why he did stay to fight. Perhaps they had not had a good chance to make a break for it down the alley. “Now I only wish to know the full story; I think it is clear you have been coerced into this business…?”

“I had meant to let them stab you in the back and run,” Akai says, irritated and frank without quite being honest. He lifts the baton in his calloused, burned hands as if surprised to find it there, and then tosses it aside casually. Inkias has to fight back a smile. Who would have thought he would miss these kinds of theatrics?

“Akai, the Guard are here to help us,” Akai’s mother says, sharp and reproachful enough that Akai pulls a face, then tries to turn it into a look of dutiful penitence.

“Yes, Mother,” he agrees. “Sir Guard has been a very great help.”

Inkias wonders if he ever sounds not sarcastic.

“Sir Guard,” his mother repeats, faintly questioning.

“Indeed,” Akai says, and Inkias has to marvel at his endless ability to communicate without actually communicating.

Akai’s mother looks the knight up and down, and her smile becomes warm and somewhat nostalgic.  “It’s been a while since we’ve had a knight on the watch in this part of the city,” she tells Inkias.  

Inkias imagines his fellow knights getting smashed on the back of their heads nearly hard enough to shatter the mask spells on their first nights, and endeavors to cover his lack of surprise with formal politeness.

“I am on the rotating lists, and doubtless I will be back.”

“You honor us with your service, Sir,” Akai’s mother says, and she bows her head slightly.

“You honor us with your service, Sir,” Akai repeats, and though he sounds just as sincere, his smile is the tight, thin kind that says thank you for your help, now goodbye and please never return.  

Ah. Akai and his mother are not be here next time Inkias comes back, even if that time is but half an hour from now after helping his fellow guards march their prisoners to the closest holding cells. They will run as soon as the knight is out of sight, and he will have no idea where to; they might even flee to another city-state, or perhaps to the villages closer to the borders. Whatever they’ve been caught up in — which Akai still has not explained, though Inkias is beginning to have a few guesses — it will be easier for them to run than stay.

Inkias has a feeling that it was not supposed to happen like this. Whatever it is. He thinks he’s felt a shift in the balance, and then the weight of counterbalances, and if there was something that was supposed to happen, whatever is going on now is a negotiation of those previously-ordained events.

“I know that kind of evasion,” the knight declares, because why shouldn’t he try to determine what comes next through his own actions? Whatever forces have guided them until now have had their chance. “You do not think you are out of danger yet. By the Third Light, I must escort you to your home.”

Akai’s face closes off, flat and expressionless, and he turns to his mother.

His mother, surely with more honesty than her son would have mustered, demurs. “Sir, it is too kind an offer, but we cannot accept. These men, they were, known to my son’s father, and they know where we live. We will not be returning to our old home.”

“Then you must allow me to convey you to a safe place for the night,” Inkias says immediately.

Akai frowns, but his mother raises one eyebrow at him, and suddenly Akai stares at Inkias, a considering look in his dark eyes.

“I admit, sir,” his mother says. “We would appreciate the protection.”

“Mother,” Akai protests, a little plaintively. “A knight? They have such horrid reputations, these days.”  

“I will see the both of you safe, upon my honor,” Inkias announces. “Not all knights are the same.”

Akai’s mother smiles, and Akai huffs and makes a show — Inkias thinks it is mostly a show — of giving in. 

“You are so chivalrous, Sir,” he tells Inkias, and the knight knows it is very much not a compliment.

Inkias doesn’t know how to convey everything he wants to; how to ask Akai to have patience, just until Inkias can find a moment’s privacy to take off his mask. “I am very serious,” he says, trying for reassuring instead. “I have decided to take a very active interest in your welfare. And your mother’s, of course.”

Under the bright moon and burning street lamps, Akai’s eyes widen with surprise — and then he smiles, half-pleased and half-calculating, and oh-so-familiar. 

Inkias treasures that look as much as any other.

• • •

“I fear it is too late to find any place respectable open,” Inkias says by way of an apology, turning carefully to look at Akai, careful of the tusks his mask. They’re walking close enough that he does have to be careful; Hera—Akai’s mother—walks on her son’s arm, on his other side. It is early morning, Inkias’s shift finally over, and he is now free to escort Akai and Hera somewhere safe. 

“We don’t mind staying at a guard station. We did not mind waiting for you at the last place,” Hera replies lightly, and Inkias shakes his head quickly. 

“Oh, no, madam! That is not what I had thought; I had thought instead to bring you to my home. That would certainly see you safely settled for a few days, and then I could assist you with your new establishment.”

Akai shoots Inkias a sideways glance. “Oh my, sir, is that not a little over-kind?” he asks, and though there’s something teasing in his voice, Inkias is almost surprised by how… courtly he manages to sound. Hera shifts, and Akai hisses as if in pain. Then says, with no more of that faint mockery, “I mean, with all due respect sir knight, we are outer city folk… we know how little notice inner-city pays us.”

“I offered you aid by the honor of my Order,” Inkias replies firmly. “And honor aside, it is not in my nature to ignore those I could help. Not when they have personally asked for help.”

“I understand, sir,” Akai says, very solemnly. 

“Do you?” Inkias asks, surprised by Akai’s easy acceptance of his code of honor. 

“Yes,” says Akai. “Those criminals hit you over the head extremely hard. It’s clearly affected your judgement, though I won’t complain about it anymore.”

Inkias strangles his burst of laughter, and snorts instead. Akai breaks out into a smile at that, and then the rest of their walk through the inner city is… easy. It somehow comes out that Inkias has fought on the twilight borders, and Akai has a thousand and one questions about the monsters there. They’re good questions — he asks about Inkias’s combat spells (many, though Inkias names only two of the most common kind) and his strengths (starlight and ice, thus his nighttime guard shifts). He even asks for the story of Inkias’s sword, which makes Inkias glance at his burn-flecked hands and arms again before answering. 

“My blade is Willspeaker, and she was first wielded by Hanoa the Lovely Wind, and all who bear her find strength in starlight and swear to the Third Light.”

Akai hums thoughtfully, and Hera says nothing, yet Inkias still has the sense that words pass between them.

“Do you know of much sword-lore?” the knight asks, and now it’s Hera’s turn to laugh.

“Forgive her,” Akai says cheerfully. “My mother’s father, my grandfather, was a swordsmith. On the twilight borders.”

"So you know a great deal of sword-lore," Inkias surmises, and then Hera fills the rest of their quiet walk with stories of her father's weapons. Inkias recognizes at least two of them.

When they reach Inkia's home in the inner city, the mistress of Inkias’s house — a matronly woman who served Inkias’s mother before him, and reigned over the place while Inkias fought on the borders — is still up despite the late-turned-early morning hour. She waited for Inkias’s return, and doesn't bat an eye when her lord comes back with two unexpected outer city guests.

“I could not send word about them,” Inkias says apologetically.

"No trouble at all, my lord," Aiyo assures him. “We always have a few rooms open. Will your guests want a bath? Yours is already drawn, sir."

"You must ask Madam Hera and her son yourself, though I would imagine so.”

"Very good, sir. There are also a few messages for you in your study. Some well-wishers came by in the evening and left their hopes that you would survive your first night..."

Inkias smiles at that. And then remembers he's still wearing his mask. In the entrance hall of his own house.

"I — yes," he starts, suddenly self-conscious. "Master Akai, may I request your company in my study? I am going there now."

The very inelegant invitation raises eyebrows all around. Aiyo looks like she suddenly understands the appearance of her lord’s new guests, and is quietly amused by it. Akai's mother seems to share Aiyo's amusement — and Akai grins unexpectedly.

"Certainly, my lord," he agrees, but with such marked pleasantness that Inkias can't helped but think he, too, must be thinking the same thing as his mother and Aiyo.

Flushing behind his mask, Inkias heads down one of the halls to the right, pausing only to be sure Akai really does follow him. Strange as it must seem, Inkias knows this is necessary before anything else. He must do this now, in private, and he's so convinced of the rightness of his plan of action that he turns around and closes the door to his study as soon as the spell-lights wink on.

Akai draws back from it, a little nonplussed by Inkias's haste. But before he can say any thing, Indias pulls his mask off and says, "I'm sorry - I couldn't find a chance to—”

Akai looks into his eyes. Stiffens, and gasps, and Inkias shuts up.

Then Kalna says, "You utter bastard." 

But he says it smiling, and it’s a smile that is wholly Kalna. Iska sighs inwardly with relief, shedding Inkias and his doubts for the moment. 

“Crows take you!” Kalna continues. “You knew it was me, and here I thought you were just trying to seduce me! And I was going to go with it! I thought, hell, he can't be too bad behind the mask, even if he is a naive fool, and it’s not like I don’t know how to encourage a man on—”

"Why wouldn't I also be trying to seduce you?” It’s the only thing Iska can think of that would interrupt Kalna’s impromptu tirade.

It works. Kalna sputters, then says, “You—Iska, you’re you.”

"Yes," Iska agrees. “And as me, I thought it would be very dishonest if you did not properly know who was courting you."

“But—Iska—I’m a nobody, and you are a noble knight," Kalna points out, taking on a ‘listen, I'm being reasonable' tone. “You must dance with the prince’s sister every night.”

Iska doesn't know why Kalna always sounds like this at his least reasonable. “I can hardly dance with the prince’s sister when I am on guard,” he says, choosing to omit the whole saga of the night before. “And you may not be noble, but no one at court could find fault with a knight for courting a swordsmith."

"I'm not—“ Kalna begins to lie automatically, then shakes his head with rue and starts again. “How did you know?"

"You hands," Inkias says. “I wasn’t sure until now, but I noticed the calluses and burns when you threw that baton away. And you didn't try to keep the weapon, though anyone else in your kind of danger would have. It would have been better than nothing, unless you had a real sword."

"And then my grandfather, the swordsmith,” Kalna sighs.

"Yes. And then your grandfather. I presume the criminals targeted you because they wanted a swordsmith?"

"You really are the worst," Kalna accuses, but he’s smiling again.  "How do you always know me?"

Iska frowns. "You do not remember?"

• • •

How do you always know me? Kalna asks again. He tilts his head from where he’s lying slumped against Iska’s warm, scaly side, and tries to look the dragon in the eye. It’s always been a mystery to him. 

Iska’s head snakes in closer to meet his gaze. Kalna, I will always know you, the dragon says. 

Though it’s not a wish, Iska feels the warmth of power, like laughter, rising to support his claim: Kalna’s power, woven in with Iska’s to make his wish absolute, and given with his whole life so many cycles ago. Kalna’s memory is a sieve, selective and dangerously incomplete. 

But Iska, at least, will always know him. 

Creep, Kalna accuses.

Iska feels impossibly fond. 

---------

📚 Ami, founder of Ary Librak 📚

Ami is said to be the eldest of the siblings, as well as the one who proposed splitting into different clans. She took in those willing to learn, either from her or others, and offered advice to those who needed it.

⛵Kalna, founder of Kai Tou ⛵

Kalna was one of the few who's body was suited for water, and so she took the rest like her to live by the seaside. An adventurous girl, she also recruited her new villagers to explore the area around them.

⚔ Loani, founder of Lei Nou ⚔

Loani only accepted those who bested her in combat. Those who were even willing to fight her also eventually joined, as she was a skilled warrior and hard to beat. She taught her new soldiers how to defend themselves against anything.

🤍 Wyvren, founder of Wy'Cabrin 🤍

It was almost enough to make him laugh. Kalna had learned by now that Iska was all he had, and all that he could have. Iska, in this strange new dragon incarnation, had chosen Kalna, and for once (again), Kalna recognized that was all he needed. How could it not be? Kalna felt safe with Iska's wings beating steadily in his ears, the dragon’s magic curled around him in a harness to keep his rider steady.

A rider's first return to the Reach was always with a magical harness, and the feat demonstrated a dragon's growth and the trust they had in their rider. (After, that kind of impractical magic was reserved for emergencies—and in that kind of emergency, falling from dragonback tended not to be one’s most pressing problem.) Regardless of whatever Iska might have said about preening, only a small part of Kalna had been looking forward to making an entrance. The others in the Reach wouldn't be able to deny Niskaya's choosing when they saw the dark red dragon descending from the skies with Kalor on his back, a full two weeks before most new dragons flew their riders home.

Only, when Iska climbed the skies to the Reach, his wings were not the only ones that to cast great shadows on the landing grounds. A large jet-black dragon shot through with veins of gold, as though its hide were marble, materialized into view just as Iska began soaring down in tight, spiraling circles. Magic had masked its wingbeats and other signs of its arrival, but with the illusion dropped, the black marble dragon tucked in its wings and arrowed towards the middle of the landing grounds. 

Almost twice Niskaya’s size, the black-gold dragon cut straight through the center of Iska’s spirals and forced him to abandon his banked wheeling and twist sideways. For one wild moment, Kalor plastered himself to Niskaya, hissing curses under his breath as the dragon beat his wings, working to regain his balance against the force of the other dragon’s swift descent and abrupt halt.

As soon as Niskaya righted himself, he continued his downwards spiral. The leisurely descent gave him and Kalna more than enough time to reason out what had happened.  

The black-gold dragon was unmistakably Anola, a nestmate of Highest Ilaia’s black dragon. Anola’s first rider had died years ago, and in the custom of many dragons who had lost their riders, Anola had flown off into the world to grieve in her own way. She must have returned and found a new rider while Iska and Kalna were out in the woods. It was very possible—mature dragons knew themselves well, and rarely took long to bond with a new rider of their own choosing—but not all that probable.

“Stop infecting me with your suspicion,” Kalna scolded as Iska touched down a respectful distance away from Anola. “I’m trying to be optimistic.”

Me, infecting you? Iska mused in reply, his voice like a cool crystal in Kalna’s mind. I am sure I remember you being crowned the king of mistrust at least once. 

“What? I’m never suspicious,” Kalna lied almost reflexively as he slid down Iska’s side. The side facing away from the growing crowd of people who’d noticed two new riders returning. “Coincidences happen, you know.”

The violent twitch of Iska’s tail made very clear what he thought about coincidence.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kalna lied again, and then he closed his mouth and tried not to frown.

Anola’s new young rider had started to cross the landing grounds—not towards the crowd and the Reach’s buildings and the welcome that awaited him, but towards Kalna and Iska. He was a tall, slender man with a quick, assured stride, and even at this distance, Kalna would have recognized him anywhere.

His breath caught in his throat, and came out in a jagged exhale. “Noki.”

Niskaya knows the royal heir—she’s one of the few people he does know—so he hears the teasing endearment in his head when he reads her skirts, and holds in a smile. With a careful twist of hope and will, he draws his power into a wish, and changes the words on the scrap of paper Jinaya has hidden in her sleeve.

A new riddle appears for her. A more difficult one, since that had been the request. Wishes these small are easy to keep from the king’s watchful eye… and is it not within Niskaya’s rights to grant blessings to his own sibling, the royal heir herself?  

With a minute tilt of her head, Jinaya surreptitiously reads the riddle. Yellow silk shifts, sharing the riddle that Niskaya’s power has wrought. His wishes are always like this; the desire comes from Niskaya, but the answer derives from the god, so it is not always Niskaya’s to know or control.

I am a dragon at war, Jinaya’s skirts say. What am I?

Niskaya holds his surprise in as well as he does his smiles. While Jinaya looks thoughtful, considering the potential metaphors and plays on words, Niskaya taps his fingers ever so slightly against the staff he carries. His range of expression is far more limited than what Jinaya can do with her skirts, so his message is slow and careful. 

I do not know, Niskaya admits, and hides his uncertainty. Is this the god’s riddle, one for Niskaya himself? 

Niskaya never sees Jinaya’s response. The king stands suddenly, abruptly blocking her from view, and Niskaya drops his eyes from the bright sunburst window. Staring through sunspots in his vision, he studies two young men who have entered the Halls and brought the king to his feet.

Foreigners.

Niskaya is sure of it. It’s not just their clothes—they both wear trousers and dark coats the gleam with thread-of-gold embroidery, cut like Niskaya has never seen before—but something intangible, a knowledge that must come from the god.

The king knows too. “I see strangers among us,” he says, voice flat.

On his feet, Niskaya’s earthly father stands a head taller than him. With a strong chin, sharp dark eyes, and skin darker than Niskaya’s, he cuts a far more imposing figure in flowing yellow robes. On the king’s other side, Jinaya also rises to her feet, dressed in yellow from her slippers to the silk scarf that binds her halo of dark, tight curls on the top of her head.

“It is a sacred honor, to stand before the Prince,” Jinaya informs the foreigners. She does it kindly, as is her wont, but firmly. When she is queen, the people will worship her. Niskaya does not have to wish this into being. 

One of the foreigners before them straightens at Jinaya’s words, chin rising proudly; Niskaya wonders what words such pride might speak. He’s smaller than his companion, slender and pale-eyed with a deep tan that clearly comes from long days of travel under a bright sun. His voice is crisp and clear when he declares, with a polite bow, “We are no common visitors.”

Niskaya feels a moment’s surprise. His own language rolls easily from this foreigner’s tongue, smoothly accented like any courtier’s—did he do that himself, without meaning it? Had his speculation wrought a wish? 

Then the taller man speaks up, his formal words pronounced with an awkward lack of surety, a student of a foreign tongue. “Your majesties, your holiness, please allow me to make proper presentations.” 

No wish, Niskaya thinks. 

Though it’s hard to tell from the raised dais set several steps above the rest of the hall, Niskaya judges this man to be nearly of height with the king. He’s almost as broad as the king too, with green eyes set in a tanned face framed by loose curls. Instead of looking up to the dais where Niskaya stands with the others, those green eyes stay fixed on his countryman. Perhaps he’s looking for cues, or confirmation that he’s using the right words.

“Forgive my tongue. My prince’s gift is with languages. Mine, now regrettably elsewhere. I learn slowly.” The green-eyed foreigner shrugs with a strange confidence... while freely sharing his weakness.  

Pale eyes blink in surprise, then slide sideways to meet green. The taller man winks cheerfully at his prince with the gift of languages. 

A lie, then? Or simple reassurance? Niskaya doesn’t have time to decide whether all or part or none of what the grinning foreigner has said is true before he continues, slow but understandable with concentration. 

“I present his highness, called Sanokil, a first prince among our people. Prince Sanokil is named for his swaying speeches.” Sanokil bows his head at his introduction, hiding the rest of his surprise from Niskaya’s careful scrutiny. Niskaya thinks he might be pleased. “And I am Akalnai, the prince’s loyal lord.” 

The loyal lord finishes his introduction with a deep, sweeping bow that encompasses his prince along with the king. When he rises, he finally turns his eyes on the dais. 

He speaks truths, Niskaya knows. Something in those dancing eyes tells him they are not all truths. He wonders what Akalnai is named for. 

Prince Sanokil takes up the explanation of where they come from, polite but unmistakably regal. “My... loyal lord and I come from across the mountains, adventurers proving ourselves, and come to you as weary travelers curious about new lands.” 

The king studies the travelers, prince and lord each. Prince Sanokil meets his gaze with a cool self-assurance, and Lord Akalnai stares back with unbridled curiosity. 

And then the king invokes the ritual greetings. “You will answer before the holy prince.”

Neither prince nor lord have a chance to speak. 

“What is the loyal lord Akalnai named for?” 

The first question is Jinaya’s, the same one Niskaya had briefly wondered about. He watches the foreigners intently enough to catch Prince Sanokil’s sudden, small smile.

Only a blind man could miss the loyal lord Akalnai’s flashing grin. “Your majesty,” he addresses Jinaya. Even with slow, awkward words, there’s no mistaking the flirtatious tone in his voice, nor the playful light in his eyes. “I am named for my love of shining things.”

Prince Sanokil’s smile twitches. So do Janya’s skirts, though she says nothing aloud. 

He’s amusing, Niskaya reads. When she catches his eye and quirks her lips, he also understands what she doesn’t spell out: I would not mind these visitors.

Niskaya wonders what it would be like to have lord Akalnai’s mischievous eyes dancing about the palace. He wonders what this loyal lord would say if his tongue weren’t guarded by Niskaya’s language, and what might draw a first prince away from his people.

“What business do you have in our kingdom?” the king demands, the second question. He offers no introductions, makes no words of welcome, and it is not for Niskaya nor for Jinaya to make them in his place. Not yet. 

“No business but our own curiosity,” Prince Sanokil supplies smoothly. “Traveling and meeting new people is our joy.”

It’s Niskaya’s turn to ask something, if he chooses.

He does.

“I am a dragon at war.” He speaks slowly and enunciates clearly for the loyal lord’s benefit. “What am I?”

The king’s head jerks to Niskaya, disbelief plain on his face. His eyes narrow, but Niskaya ignores that. The king had surely had been about to speak, certain that Niskaya would not honor foreigners with his words. Now that he has, the king is bound by laws of courtesy: if the foreigners’ answers please Niskaya, the king must offer them hospitality.

Niskaya looks beyond the king’s surprise, to Jinaya’s smile. He likes to make her smile.

The foreigners, meanwhile, confer with each other in their own language. Niskaya knows it is their own language, but as strange sounds and syllables fill the air, meaning fills his mind.

“It must be a riddle,” Prince Sanokil says. “I, a dragon at war, what am I?”

“Very angry and highly dangerous,” Lord Akalnai answers. When Niskaya looks away from Jinaya and back at the foreigners, the loyal lord is smiling politely.

Prince Sanokil frowns and turns sharply towards the dais. “Very powerful?” he offers, showing himself far more diplomatic than his loyal lord. 

Niskaya doesn’t laugh—in the memory.

“They are answers as good as any, and I am pleased,” he decrees. And the king, thus bound, invites the prince and his lord to stay among them.  

“You and yours are as welcome as family, cousin Sanokil from beyond,” Jinaya declares.

*

“Blasted stars in the bloody, blighted sky,” Kalor swore, opening his eyes and reeling. It was a foul oath as old as the oldest dragons. Predictably, Niskaya’s head dropped down to his face, reproach clearly written in his dragons expression. Still, Niskaya’s long neck supported Kalor as he slid down to slump against the dragon.

Kalor laughed. It was a loud laugh, sharp and out of control, and all the while Niskaya’s riddle rang in his head. I am a dragon at war. What am I? Kalna turned and pressed his face into Iska’s scales to muffle himself. A dragon at war. That can’t be a real memory. It can’t.

And why not?

Iska’s voice was like the whisper of silk in Kalna’s mind, and immediately strangled his hysterical laughter.

And why not? Kalna thought. Why not? What did he know about all those lives lived and lost, without Iska’s clear memories? Bloody, blighted stars and blasted skies, he really didn’t want to think about it.

“I stand by my first answer,” Kalna muttered.

The puff of air against his cheek felt of snorted laughter. “I am a dragon at war,” Niskaya repeated. “What am I?”

“Pissed off and extremely dangerous.”

Iska’s eyes narrowed to pleased slits, and he made a show of carefully inspecting a claw. It should have been funny, such studied menace from a baby dragon not much larger than Kalna—one who’d barely ever hunted for himself—yet Kalna’s chest swelled with with awe and an impossible affection that made his insides weightless.

“Yes,” Iska rumbled. In their bond Kalna felt his own emotions mirrored deeply—his love, his devotion... and his fury. “You always have known me best.”  

“I dunno,” Kalna said, suddenly grinning again. “I never would’ve guessed that you’d be the one roaring for vengeance.” 

Niskaya and Kalor left for their First Hunt early in the evening, with the pomp of any rider’s ritual first outing with their dragon: no fanfare, no announcement. The small gathering of riders and curious dragons was a little larger than normal, but just two out of the six Highest riders came. Highest Ilaia and her black dragon Ilix were among the group. They watched Kalor go, thoughtful and silent; Kalor felt the black dragon's eyes on his back like two sharp blades until long after he and Niskaya were out of sight. 

Kalor carried a sword and a bow, snares, a tinderbox, a bedroll, and other supplies needed for the weeks-long retreat in packs and slings that hung about his person, balanced here or tucked to the side there so that Kalor’s arms were free to carry Niskaya. 

The dragon slept against his chest with his head tucked over Kalor’s shoulder and propped against a pack, while his tail curled over one of Kalor’s arms to keep it from dragging on the ground. The infant dragon wasn’t too heavy yet, but he made for an awkward enough burden that Kalor took the first, rocky descent slowly. Towards the bottom of it, Niskaya finally woke up. 

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Kalna said as soon as one silver eye opened and rolled up at him to assess the situation. “Ready to walk on your own feetsies?”

“No,” replied Iska promptly, but Kalna had already stopped and stooped to deposit the dragon onto the ground. The path they followed still sloped downwards, but at a much more level angle that shouldn’t be a problem for even an infant dragon. 

“If you want food then I need my arms to hunt,” Kalna argued, only for sleepy petulance to roll through the back of his head. 

I could hunt for myself, Iska claimed.

Kalna conceded--privately--that he probably could. Iska was extremely stubborn in that way. But he was still so small and young that he would grow irritated long before he found food, so Kalna ignored him and started walking again. Iska was forced to trot on all fours to catch up.

They continued down the path together carefully, scrambling over steep roots or large boulders as they went, until they finally came to a relatively wide game trail heading east.

“I’ve camped out there before,” Kalna said, and turned onto the game trail. He didn’t say the last time he had been out there was back when he still thought he would be a rider, before the failed tests and the long, wearying resignation and then the abrupt return of everything. Like thunder booming to fill a years-long silence. Meeting Iska was always like that.

Kalna stole a glance at the dragon, and felt a swell of golden patience meet him back.

There was a comfort in the bond that he had never had before. In his most recent memories, Kalna thought he and Iska had found each other more often, and less antagonistically. He felt like he could finally stand beside Iska and still feel the ground beneath his feet; now, the dragon and rider connection offered him something yet more soothing. 

Trust, Iska’s voice said in his head. It was sleepy but sure of itself.

I always trusted you, Kalna replied.

You loved me, but you didn't trust me. And I didn't trust you. We have history. How could we not harbor a small fear, here or there?

Kalna didn’t want to agree, and changed the subject without even trying to pretend he was doing something else. 

You know, he mused, We’re supposed to return to the Range when we reach mental connection, sometime in the fifth or sixth week of the First Hunt. 

Iska’s tail flicked with quiet amusement before he trotted up to Kalna’s side. We will have this conversation eventually, he admonished Kalna, then continued on to preclude any chance of protest. And we do not have to embarrass the other riders. One could say the swiftness of our bond’s formation was cheating, since we already know each other. 

Kalna snorted. Fine, fine. 

Fine, Iska said. There was a pause between them. Iska opened his mouth--only to let out a yawn that whined out of him.

“I am very tired,” he admitted. “And hungry.” 

Kalna unshouldered his bow and drawled, “Yes, your princeliness. You can take a nap while I find you food.”

Iska’s immature growl startled a laugh out of him. 

(He stopped laughing by the time he realized Niskaya preferred to be carried, sleeping, in a sling around Kalor’s body to being left behind while he was hunting.)

By the fourth week of Iska’s growth, his body at its highest point when he laid down came up to Kalna’s torso, and its length was longer than Kalna was tall, not including his tail. He was a slender adolescent dragon, with still-oversized wings that could take him into flight for a couple of hours at a time. It was still too taxing for him to bring Kalna along with him, so he mostly made large, lazy circles or practiced divebombs wherever Kalna was still in view, and he always needed a nap immediately afterwards.

They slept curled up together, when Iska’s sleep-when-necessary coincided with Kalna’s regular night hours--and it usually did, since the dragon was almost always sleeping, or lazing about, if he wasn’t flying or watching Kalna hunt. He was going to have to start doing the heavy lifting soon, and had never stopped insisting he could.

“At least you’ll finally stop complaining about being hungry when we get back,” Kalna mused, thinking of the large stores of meat there. He was leaned up against the curve of Iska’s neck, and Iska’s head was tucked in so that he could watch Kalna with one of his big silver eyes.

His glossy red scales were starting to change a little, becoming slightly less soft and a little darker. Kalna thought they were losing some of the glossiness, too--or at least the scales against his back felt less glossy, and smoother now, like slate stone warmed by the sun.

“I don’t complain about being hungry,” Iska said truthfully.  

“Oh, never. You merely share your hunger with me, like a gift, and tell me you could hunt yourself if I can’t.” 

That was also true, and Iska couldn’t object. Kalna smiled at the acknowledgement and yielding that came through the bond. It felt like a shrug, and it reminded him of Iska’s quiet laughter.

“I could hunt,” Iska began again. “I am sure of it.”

“I’m sure you could have injured yourself trying,” Kalna snorted. “Why the rush, Iska? We have our whole lives ahead of us. I can feed you for a few weeks of them.”

They were going to be together, and the more time Kalna and Iska spent in the woods on their First Hunt, the more secure Kalna felt. All his secret fears, all the worries he told himself not to have… Iska knew them now, and suddenly they didn’t seem to matter so much.

“A whole life,” Iska murmured, and the correction came a dense cloud of a feeling that Kalna had shied from before. 

But warmed by Iska at his back, and curled around him, Kalna waited for the dragon to gather his thoughts and say what Kalna had felt hovering in the back of his mind. 

“We deserve more than this one life, Kalna. Are you... is it time to talk about history?"

Kalna didn’t understand fully. He understood Iska--he understood Iska’s anger, and love, and shame, and fear, and heartache, and want, felt all if it roiling between them in a tumult that felt more familiar than Iska might know. But there was more. 

"Our history, you mean."

"Yes."

"What is there to talk about?" Kalna asked, as if he didn't already know. Once cycle after another, it was always Kalna who harbored a secret, bitter anger, while Iska was Iska, and everything went from there. Often messily.

No. Iska intruded on his thoughts with authority. No. Not you, Kalna. Do not put this on you. I have had a great deal of time to think about this in my egg.

Something molten flashed inside of Kalna, through the bond, but it ran cold a moment later. So cold that Kalna felt everything contract for a moment, burning-freezing. And then it was under control again.  

You are very angry, Kalna realized.

We have had much taken from us. Do you remember how we came to be like this, in the first life?

Kalna never really wanted to remember. “It was a god,” he said aloud. “An ancient, powerful conscience.”

No, Iska said. It was a man. With a message from the gods, but he was not a godly being. Do you remember him?

But try as he might, when Kalna thought of that first life, when he and Iska began their endless cycles, he coudn’t see the man Iska spoke of. He thought of a god, the god, and there was a tower, and Iska’s sun and Kalna’s crow--or were they the sun and the crow? In his memory, the sun’s tower seemed to double and triple and then overlay itself infinitely, each reflection slightly different--how many towers had there been? How many times had he leapt and fallen? And how many times had he been pushed?

You see? Iska asked. Too much has been taken. Let me show you what I remember.

So Kalna opened his mind, and saw through Iska’s eyes.

"Think about it, Iska!" Akalnai cries out, in the memory. 

He is tall and broad-shouldered, with half of his brown curls pulled back into a stubby knot high on his head. He’s let a short beard cover his square jaw, and he rubs it as he paces about the room in dainty, measuring steps and abrupt lunges across potential routes of exits. As restless and as unquiet as usual.

Now that Akalnai’s rank as a prince in his own lands has been revealed, he doesn’t have to sneak all the way up to Niskaya’s tower chambers anymore. They meet easily in one of the large, airy rooms with a pointed, vaulting ceiling built off to the side of the library, and Niskaya watches tirelessly as Akalnai inhabits the new space.

"I am thinking," he says, after a moment. “And I do not see how it could be possible."

"Niskaya, Niskaya," Akalnai sighs tragically, and he raises his hands to his heart. "Please sit and let me tell you this tale, for I am a weaver of stories, and many hearths have I warmed." His voice drops into the deep, steady rhythm of the telling-chant from the Solstice nights, and Niskaya finds he has no choice but to sit in his chair and listen. 

"In my lands, the talents we have are not certainly not common, but nor are they unheard of. Here, you have a power greater than our greatest, and you stand alone, holy and royal at once." Akalnai's voice becomes softer in the telling-chant, thoughtful. Niskaya is his captive audience, and he sits still while his heart races. "Does that not seem strange, that what comes to us so in such numbers is so singular here? Do the broken mountains change so much?"

They could, Niskaya thinks.

"Do you remember the tale I told for the Solstice celebrations? Of Lady Ines and Lord Astola?"

Akalnai pauses this time, seeming to expect an answer, so Niskaya says, "Yes. They sailed north, up the river to the Greater Sea and the lands beyond."

"Yes, wild Ines and her lord did sail away for their betrothal quest,” Akalnai agrees. "The rite from which all must return wedded, or not return at all. And yet, in the older versions of our ancient stories, Lady Ines and Lord Astola have always turn their prow south, where the river flowed, and found the Greater Sea there. But now, there is no sea to the southeast of us. Only the broken mountains, which have always been there, and which lead here. And though none have ever crossed the broken mountains, nor crossed them to us, as there is no sea where the mountains are, thus Lady Ines and Lord Astola began to sail north. In the stories.”

Niskaya listens in silence. When Akalnai is done speaking, eyes bright with his infectious excitement, Niskaya tilts head back against the tall backrest of his chair, in silence. He turns his face up towards the curved, carved wooden ribs of the vaulted ceiling while he thinks about it—and suddenly he doesn’t want Akalnai to see his face. Niskaya wouldn’t know how to hide the explosion of hope that washes through him, making his heart wild and his skin flash warm. Another world, he thinks desperately. I could be anyone in another world.

“How could it be possible?” He doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until he hears himself, but isn’t this what Niskaya has always wished for? “How could two worlds simply collide?”

The room to the door swings open before Akalnai can reply. Niskaya jerks his head down quickly and sees Sanokil, looking unsurprised but vaguely suspicious. He has an armful of scrolls, but he still bows politely to Niskaya when he enters.

“Your holiness,” Sanokil says while he deposits his burden onto an empty table. “Pardon the intrusion, but if I heard that properly, I should warn you about Akalnai’s fanciful delusions. You shouldn’t listen to him.”

“My fanciful delusions?” Akalnai gasps, mock-outraged. He had stopped pacing when the door opened, and now leans back against the side of Niskaya’s desk, the back of one hand pressed to his forehead in exaggerated disbelief. When Niskaya looks up at him, Akalnai winks. 

He’s not supposed to be touched by the pollution of mundane life, but Niskaya judges that his late-night wanderings to have not influenced him badly. And more to the point, he has yet to be caught. If he were, it would only be right, and he would stop. As it has not happened yet, well. 

Niskaya already knows that if there is an adverse influence in his life, it comes from across the broken mountain ranges. 

They whisper that he is some disgraced heir—a prince, maybe, or a duke or whatever titles of importance they give over there. He has come with an escort, another noble lord or no, actually he was the prince, because it was clear between the two of them who led and who followed. 

So, the rumors sum up: the foreign lord Akalnai is a fool; and all the sense to be had from across the mountain ranges rests with the prince. And the foreigners' attendants. 

It is from the attendants--his own and the foreigners'--that Niskaya gathers his whispers, gazes wished aside as he walks the halls of his castle alone and at night. Niskaya compares the whispers with his memories of the young man who had found a hidden way to his tower. That lord had been open and broad in his expressions, though contrary with his words. 

Yes, Niskaya thinks. He could be a fool. 

When Akalnai next finds his way up to his tower again, Niskaya resolves to ask him about it. 

“Why do my people dislike you?”

Akalnai grins and straightens from the low crouch he’d landed in, having slid down from the high window sill and cushioned his fall with softly bending knees. 

“I think it is my foreignness that offends them terribly," he says without hesitation. With an actor's confidence, even. "I’m said to have carried awful diseases from the high ranges.” He spreads his hands apologetically, a gesture made in jest, but Niskaya sees the faint tension in Akalnai’s frame. It's the same as in everyone who stands before him.

Still, he cannot resist trying to root out the rest of it. It is his nature, after all, and what can he do but follow where it leads? 

“Why do you dislike my people?” 

Akalnai’s eyes go wide, and Niskaya thinks the green in them pulses, as though the soul, like the heart, has some rhythm of its own, and perhaps Akalnai’s has been called back from some beatless brink. Niskaya had not known one could see that sort of thing in someone’s eyes. 

Akalnai lowers his. And laughs.

“They you don't know anything down there, you know,” he tells Niskaya. “And then you go and cut straight to the core of me with just two questions.”

Niskaya says nothing. Akalnai gives him too much credit, and what he wants is answers. 

Faced by Niskaya's patience, Akalnai steps away from the window and adds, as if musing, “How could I possibly dislike people I don’t know?” 

“That, I do not know,” admits Niskaya. He does not have strong opinions of people either way. The part of the god in him should not be tarnished by base human needs. Nor by emotional ones. So it has always been, for the true princes of the kingdom. “But I think that you do.” 

Akalnai makes his way to the bed and sits on its side again. “All right, Iska,” he agrees, unashamed. “Maybe I don’t like them. I certainly don’t trust them.“

“Is that a prerequisite for liking?” Niskaya hides the eager leap in him, surprised by it. He does want to know people, he tries not to remember. He's always wished to know them, but it's remained the one desire the god in him has never met. He dines among them, on feast days, but what does that teach him? 

Akalnai scoffs. "It's not a prerequisite. It's one variable in a much more complex equation."

Niskaya thinks about this. Then observes, "You seem to trust and like me."

“That’s different,” Akalnai says immediately. “What you and I...that is—this is…” Akalnai gestures his struggle to articulate his meaning. 

Niskaya waits for him to find the words, and when Akalnai realizes he is waiting, he decides at last.

“Synergy," he says. “Maybe. We face each other, we would say. When you see that, you have to see where it goes. What you do."

“And that balances your equation for trust and likability?”

Akalnai shrugs. “Why not?" he asks. "We’re going to the same place.” 

That sounds less like a statement from Akalnai, and more like a statement, something that goes with synergy. There’s a place they need to reach. 

Niskaya turns that over in his head, this idea that he and Akalnai have been brought together—something which creates trust—and frowns. 

“I do not follow your logic.”

“I never claimed it was logic,” he defends. He sounds honest. “Logic is this: your people are too polite, stiff. And pretty. Very pretty. And pretty people hide ugly secrets. Therefore...” 

Akalnai trails off, and Niskaya makes the so-called logical conclusions.

Surveying Akalnai’s smug grin, Niskaya recognizes the easily committed flaws of logic with a nod. 

And still points out, “You are very pretty too, Kalna.” 

Some undefinable expression crosses Akalnai's face, open and readable if only Niskaya could. Then it’s gone, and Akalnai grins. 

"Oh, don’t I know it,” he says, and winks.