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14 Brussendar, 815 PD
On the evening of the 14th day of Brussendar, there was, appropriately, a storm on the horizon.
The morning of the 14th had dawned sunny and bright in Gelvaan, but with a sticky sweet humidity to the air that warned of wetter weather coming soon. As the afternoon lazed along, thunderheads had rolled in from the west – each of them with ominous dark gray bellies and roiling innards. By the time the young couple in the country farmhouse outside of town sat down to eat their evening meal, the smell of rain was in the air.
“Y’alright?” Relvin asked his wife as he pushed her chair in at the dinner table – gently, so as not to make her swollen belly uncomfortable against the edge of the table. Liliana could hardly find a comfortable position to sit at all these past few weeks, but he had a hunch that the pinch of her brow was from something different.
“I think so,” she said, although he could tell she was not being entirely honest with him. She touched the swell of her stomach and then looked up to meet his gaze. “The baby’s fine, I just… I’m feeling off is all. I’m sorry, I think I might go for a walk instead. I’m not feelin’ up for dinner.”
Relvin glanced nervously at the kitchen window. “Looks like there’s a storm blowin’ in. I’ll go with ya. And we best not go too far.”
“Alright.” Liliana nodded, then moved a hand to cradle her lower back as a flash of pain moved across her face.
He lowered himself to one knee beside her chair, placing a careful hand on her elbow. “You sure you’re up for this? Maybe we just take a sit by the fire and stay in.”
But Liliana was already shaking her head and standing up. “No, no, I’m alright. Just need to stretch my legs is all.”
Relvin took her elbow and steadied a hand at her hip. “Alright, love,” he said, “Let’s go for that walk.”
She smiled at him. It was a little weak – and a little tired – but it was genuine. “Just a quick turn around the barn,” she said, “and then I’ll come inside and rest. I promise.”
They headed down the porch steps arm in arm. As they did, he spared a glance for the wheat fields that stretched out before them.
Relvin had never left the Taloned Highlands in all his life. His experience with the natural world was limited to what could be found within about a 50 mile radius of Gelvaan. He’d always wondered what there was to be found elsewhere – what snow was like, what towering mountains were like, what the sea was like.
But on nights like these – when the wind picked up and drove the knee-high grass of the fields in rippling waves that seemed to go on as far as the eye could see – Relvin figured he had a pretty good idea of what it was like to stand on the shore of a great ocean and bask in his own insignificance.
Somewhere behind the thunderheads, he was sure the sun was still on its way down to the horizon. But from Relvin’s vantage point, all was falling into darkness – and quickly. It wasn’t more than about 100 yards to the barn, a five-minute walk under normal conditions, but ushering his very pregnant wife along could hardly be considered ‘normal.’ He didn’t dare rush Liliana’s slow, measured pace. But with each step they took away from the house, his misgivings grew.
As they were approaching the barn, Liliana suddenly halted. Her face contorted in pain and she hunched over at the waist, clutching her stomach with one hand and gripping his arm for support with the other.
Relvin felt panic spike, and snaked a hand around her waist to offer more support. “Is it time? D’you need me to fetch the cleric?”
Again, Liliana was already shaking her head. “No, no. I’m fine. Let’s just-” she trailed off for a moment as another wave of pain crossed her face, “Let’s just finish the walk. I’ll be alright.”
When Relvin looked back on it later, he couldn’t say exactly what kept him from turning back immediately. Perhaps it was due in part to the fact that one of his wife’s most enduring characteristics was her stubbornness. He might have been able to persuade her to stop and turn around, but it wasn’t likely. At the same time, they were already almost as far from the house as they were going to be. Turning around wouldn’t save much time, and giving Liliana the satisfaction of finishing what she set out to do was probably worth the risk.
Probably.
Suddenly, the heavens opened above them, and rain started falling in relentless sheets. They hobbled as quickly as they could to the barn and Relvin threw open the doors to let them inside. As he turned to take Liliana’s hand and guide her inside, two things became clear immediately.
First, a bolt of lightning lit up the otherwise murky sky and the peal of thunder that rumbled through immediately after it showed that it had not been far away. It was not going to be safe to leave the barn anytime soon.
And secondly, Liliana was in so much pain that she was leaning nearly all her weight into him just to stay upright. The baby was coming now, and it was coming in this barn.
Relvin made his wife as comfortable as she could be on the hay, laying down a rough woolen blanket below her and bundling up another to tuck under her head. He’d delivered his fair share of goats in this same barn. He couldn’t say he ever thought his own child would be delivered under the same circumstances, but at least it was familiar.
He held Liliana’s hand and their eyes met for a brief but intense moment. Her eyes were wide and shining with panic and for a moment she looked so young, so fragile. Relvin mustered up whatever courage and reassurance he could find and hoped it showed in the soft smile he gave her. He couldn’t take on the pain for her, but maybe he could take some of the fear.
As quickly as it had started, the moment passed. Another wave of pain took her, and they were both forced to focus on the task at hand.
Liliana labored long into the night. Before long, her violet hair was streaked with sweat. It clung to her neck and forehead in damp curls. Outside, the storm raged on, occasionally illuminating the rafters with another streak of lightning or shaking the foundations with a crack of thunder. Nearby, the animals shifted nervously in their stalls, as if they too understood the significance of this moment.
(If the couple had had a moment to spare a thought for their surroundings, they would have noticed the rain slowing to a stop outside and the clouds parting as the night wore on. They would have noticed Catha’s light shining through, bright and clear.
They would have noticed a wave of red light that washed over the barn like blood.)
At long last, it was done. Relvin shrugged out of his overshirt and wrapped his daughter in it. She was so small – still wrinkled and bloody from the ordeal of birth. And yet as he held her, he knew he would never love another being more as long as he lived.
They’d decided on the name months ago. (Liliana had felt certain the baby was a girl and wouldn’t even entertain name ideas for a boy.) He decided to try it out, testing the syllables on his tongue as he addressed her for the first time: “Imogen.”
Relvin slowly lowered himself onto the hay beside Liliana, resting his weight on his elbow as he gently passed Imogen to her and laid the baby on her chest. As he did, he saw his wife’s eyes well with immediate tears.
“She sounds so beautiful,” she said.
Relvin had only a moment to ponder what she meant before Imogen began to cry.
It was the best sound he’d ever heard.
14 Brussendar, 818 PD
Relvin woke to an empty bed.
That in and of itself wasn’t necessarily unusual. Liliana was probably checking on Imogen or getting a head start to the day. She had always liked to capitalize on the quiet of an early morning.
Still, there was something uncanny that morning that unnerved him – a stillness about the house that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. The morning was already intensely hot, even for this time of year, and he felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck as he slid out of bed, though he wasn’t sure whether it was from the heat or from unease.
“Lil?” He called out quietly into the house. There was no answer.
Relvin opened the door to Imogen’s room and poked his head in. From the doorway, he could see the deep rise and fall of her chest, illuminated by a sliver of sunlight poking through at the side of the curtains. Her curly hair was sleep-mussed and wild and there was a little drool on her pillow.
He smiled and left her to sleep a bit longer.
Stepping out into the kitchen, he found that it too was empty of Liliana. Again, this wasn’t necessarily out of the ordinary, but it was beginning to seem odd to him. Especially as that pinprick of inexplicable unease at the back of his neck seemed to seep downward into the rest of his body, settling like a lead weight in his stomach.
Liliana had been… distant lately. That was putting it quite mildly, if Relvin was honest with himself (which he hadn’t been particularly interested in doing).
It was fine, he supposed. He could be patient and understanding while she took the time she needed. He just hoped she worked out whatever was bothering her soon. Imogen was getting older and more observant. She was starting to notice Liliana’s absences, to ask about them. (And he was having a harder time explaining them away.)
Relvin sighed.
The barn then. Horses were Liliana’s true comfort, but seeing as they didn’t have any of their own – and since it was far too early to make the trek to Faramore’s – she sometimes liked to find solace in the chickens and goats on their own property. She had always seemed to prefer the company of animals to the company of other humans when she was most distressed.
He tried his best not to be offended by it.
Relvin headed to the mudroom and tugged on his boots to go looking for her, but as he reached for the latch, he noticed his coat was hanging alone by the door – its counterpart missing from the now empty hook beside it.
His blood ran cold.
A missing coat could have indicated an errand or a walk or any number of other benign activities. But Relvin knew in an instant that this was different.
Years of evidence finally added up and the sum total was abandonment.
The way Liliana had been emotionally distant for months, maybe even years. The way she spent more and more time out at the barn, in the fields, anywhere but home. The way she seemed to shy away from the family they were building together. The way she had kissed him goodnight the night before, slow and deliberate and final.
He had seen it coming a mile away – like a dust storm on the horizon – and ignored it until it was too late. Until his home was already consumed by it.
Liliana had left.
She had left.
And she was never coming back.
Relvin replaced his boots by the door and returned to the main living area of the house. He sank into his usual spot at the kitchen table and stared at the empty chair across from him.
He didn’t cry, which struck him as odd, even in the shock of that moment. Crying certainly seemed like the appropriate thing to do – and some distant part of him was vaguely embarrassed by his inability to do so – but tears wouldn’t come.
(Later, he could never say how long he sat there, gazing into the middle distance. Not thinking, not even mourning – just sitting.)
Eventually, a shuffling from down the hallway broke him from his stupor. Sheets rustled and shifted. Tiny feet padded their way across the hardwood.
Relvin steeled himself.
Imogen’s voice called out: “Mama?”
Finally, after the broken numbness of the last hour or so, a dominant emotion broke through the haze: a vicious, all-consuming anger.
He was an imperfect husband, sure. Farm life was tough, he knew that. Gelvaan was hardly exciting. And there were the migraines, of course – ones that the local clerics couldn’t seem to do a damn thing about. Relvin could think of a dozen reasons for Liliana to leave that he could rationalize, could forgive, even, if he was feeling generous.
But this.
To leave their daughter? And to do so on her birthday no less? That could not be understood, could never be forgiven.
Relvin took several deep breaths and did his best to school his expression into something as neutral as possible in the moments before Imogen came around the corner and into the kitchen. Imogen rubbed her eyes with the back of one tiny hand as she entered the room, dragging her favorite blanket behind her by its corner.
“Daddy? Where’s Mama?”
Now, finally, Relvin felt tears spring up behind his eyes. This was not fair. Not to him, but certainly not to Imogen. He worked his jaw, wrestling with the sadness and swallowing it back down before he trusted himself to speak. “Mama’s not here right now, sweetheart.”
“Why?” Imogen asked, grasping at his knees with her tiny, uncoordinated hands in an attempt to pull herself up into his lap. He obliged her, hooking his hands under her arms to lift her the rest of the way. She curled her feet up under her and leaned heavily into his chest. He rested his chin on the top of her head and pulled her close.
“Well…” he started and then trailed off when he realized he had no idea how to finish that sentence. What was there to say? Mama ain’t been doin’ too well and she wouldn’t tell me why, so I guess she’s just gone forever. “I’m not sure, honey. She just ain’t here right now.”
“Oh. Okay.” Imogen said.
Relvin couldn’t tell if her neutral, unphased response was a reminder of just how young and impressionable Imogen still was or an indicator of how distant Liliana had already been. In either case, it broke his heart all over again.
Relvin breathed in deeply, once – smelled the warm, honey smell of Imogen’s hair.
He held the breath...
Counted to one, two, three, four…
…Let it out slowly.
Then he searched the depths of his heart for whatever scraps of positivity and excitement he could find. They would confront this reality another day. Someday there would be a conversation about Mama and where she went and why, but today they would play pretend – a game of imagination where Liliana wasn’t Gone, she just Wasn’t. One more day in a world where everything was all right. Imogen deserved that much.
“You know what?” he started, taking Imogen by the shoulders and pushing her away from his body just enough that he could look into her eyes. He poked the tip of her nose with one finger. “You and me are gonna have a fun birthday just the two of us, ain’t we?”
Imogen beamed up at him.
14 Brussendar, 833 PD
Imogen woke with a start in the dead of night.
The first thing she registered was a dull red glow from her window that illuminated her bedroom in an otherworldly monotone of black and red.
The second was the pain. There was a pressure at the back of her neck and at each temple. It felt at once like a fullness from within – swollen, maybe, or inflamed – but also a force from without, pressing, pressing, pressing in against her skull.
And lastly, Imogen registered the noise – or was it several noises, all at once? – that seemed to bombard her from all sides – sourceless but ever-present.
There was a clear ringing, like a tuning fork that sang and sang and sang in one continuous, agonizing tone – never stopping, never reducing in volume.
Below the ringing, there was also a constant, low buzzing like the sound of bees in the wild lavender bushes in spring. It flitted in and out of her awareness, pollinating one flower, then the next, but never leaving, never slowing down, never quieting.
And then there were the words.
It was hard to make out, but there were words there, Imogen was sure – meaning, too, maybe. Under that high, clear tone, under the buzzing, someone was saying something.
The words were scattered, but she could make out phrases here and there – bits and pieces of meaning that floated across her awareness like ashes falling on the wind after a forest fire. They seemed to bypass her ears, as if they had been injected directly into her mind. And the feeling of invasion – of violation – was so acute, Imogen felt she might be sick from the horror of it.
The more she focused on the words, the more the pain in her head condensed. What had been a dull ache – more pressure than pain at first – crystalized into a blinding, white-hot point of agony at each temple.
(Imogen thought distantly of the farrier at Faramore’s ranch, driving horseshoes into hooves with a nail and hammer, and wondered if this is what it would feel like if that was done to her skull.)
She tried to block the words out. Tried to replace them with her own internal monologue, drowning them with thoughts of her plans for the day, with childhood memories, even calculating simple arithmetic in her head. It was no use. They passed freely across the permeable membrane of her mind, heedless of her efforts to stop them.
Next, Imogen tried to ignore the words. Maybe if she pretended they weren’t there they would go away, like holding still and waiting for a spider to crawl away so as not to startle it into biting her. Even that was impossible.
The overwhelming realization washed over her that she was trapped. Trapped with the noise, trapped with the pain, trapped inside her own body.
She had to get out, out, out!
Imogen curled in on herself – hands clamped around her ears, chin tucked to her sternum, knees folded tightly to her chest – as if by making herself small enough, she could somehow hide from it all. She called out into the night – Daddy! – and didn’t have the presence of mind to be ashamed at how childlike it must have sounded.
As if by some miracle, the pain lessened the moment she called out, even if only slightly. The ringing and the buzzing remained, but the words… paused. For a moment there was a blessed blankness. Imogen let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
As quickly as the reprieve had started, it was over. Imogen found that now she wasn’t hearing words so much as she was feeling feelings. Anxiety and panic surged in her that were not her own. And through the wave of emotion, she could make out fragments of her own name.
After what felt like an eternity – but was probably only a few moments – she heard her father’s heavy footsteps in the hall. The door to her bedroom flung open and Imogen heaved out a sob of relief. In all her eighteen years, there hadn’t been a problem her Daddy didn’t know how to solve, a sickness he hadn’t nursed her through, an injury he couldn’t tend. Surely – surely – whatever was happening to her would now come to an end.
Imogen cracked open one eye and in doing so realized for the first time that she had closed them, though she wasn’t sure when. The aural agony was already so intense that the absence of sight hadn’t occurred to her until now. Relvin’s silhouette was framed by the open door and the left side of his face was cast into sharp relief by the red light still streaming in from the window.
“Please,” she begged, “It hurts.”
In an instant, he was by her side, kneeling next to the bed. To her dismay, the pain swelled in his presence. He reached out to lay a gentle hand on her hair, but she was swatting it away before she even realized what she was doing.
“... Imogen?” he asked, and the hurt and confusion in his voice was apparent, even through the haze of her own disoriented mind.
“Hurts,” she repeated by way of explanation. “You hurt.” Imogen wasn’t sure she was making much sense, but the noise was so loud. She closed her eyes again, as if that could shut it out.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he said, and even with her eyes closed, Imogen could feel him withdraw physically. She breathed the softest sigh of relief as the pain retreated with him. “I was trying to be gentle, but I’ll go slower this time. Please, sweetheart. Tell me where it hurts.”
He didn’t understand. It wasn’t the touch that hurt, it was everything.
“N-no,” Imogen ground out through clenched teeth. “Everything hurts. …It’s s-so loud.”
He looked at her. (She could tell that he was looking at her, even though her eyes were still closed. Some pain-riddled part of her brain registered that this made no sense, and yet, it was true. She saw his vision on the backs of her eyelids as clearly as if it were her own.) As he did, she felt a cool dread crawl down her spine. It was not her dread, she was beginning to realize, it was his.
Forcing her way through the pain, Imogen opened her eyes to meet his gaze. His eyes were wide but unfocused, and it was clear that he was looking through her in a way he never had before. Whatever he was really seeing, it wasn’t her – it wasn’t even in this room.
Imogen started to catch fragments of words and phrases again. This time, the meaning was easy to deduce because all she could hear was one phrase repeated endlessly: Not again, not again, not again…
“Daddy?” she asked, trying to draw him out of his stupor. He started, jumping back ever so slightly. Now, finally, he looked at her – really looked at her – wide-eyed and paper-white. Like he’d seen a ghost.
(It’s a painful process for any child to realize that their parent is truly human. That the hero of their childhood is subject to all the same terrible, fallible emotions as any other person: sadness, confusion, worry, fear. To realize that this person who has always had every answer is in fact, at a loss themself.)
In that moment, as Relvin looked into her eyes, Imogen felt two parallel waves of panic crest over her, dragging her down, down into a rip current of terror.
The first was clearly his, both projected into her mind and written plainly on his face, on the way his hand – still out-stretched – was shaking.
The second was her own, as she realized for the very first time in her life that her father was terrified. Imogen felt a raw, animal fear grip her, and she resisted the urge to run – not from him, but from his fear, from the idea of it.
Because she knew, in the depths of her being, that he was afraid of her.
14 Brussendar, 839 PD
Flora’s hooves thundered against hard-packed earth as Imogen urged her faster, faster, faster across the open fields. She could not get away from that gods-foresaken town quickly enough.
When the buzz of thoughts was finally so far behind that even the memory of it ceased to sting, Imogen slowed Flora to a stop and slid off her saddle in a hasty, stumbling dismount. There was a waist-high wooden fence here that marked the end of Master Faramore’s property and, by extension, the start of the woods beyond. Imogen staggered over to the fence and braced her hands against its top rung as deep, shuddering sobs tore out of her chest.
The day hadn’t even been out of the ordinary, and yet, somehow, that’s what made it so fucking hard to deal with. Another day of loneliness, of judgmental looks – and even worse thoughts. Of unending pain. It was all too much, and it had been for a long time.
(Flora, for her part, seemed largely unbothered and grazed quietly nearby, as if giving Imogen the dignity of a little privacy.)
Slowly, slowly, as the adrenaline and pain and panic left her body, Imogen lowered herself to the ground. She leaned her back against a fence post and stretched one leg out in front of her, tucking the other up against her chest. She tipped her head back until it contacted the wood with a dull thud.
It had been six years.
Six years and she still had no idea what caused this to happen or how to make it stop. Six whole years and she wasn’t one bit closer to being able to control the noise. Six years and her relationship with her father had never recovered – and she was starting to accept that it probably never would.
In another life, Imogen supposed that the fact that today was her birthday would have at least been a small comfort – a cause for whatever celebration she could muster in spite of the agony of the day. But today all it felt like was a slap in the face, an all-too-painful reminder of how long she’d suffered.
Her future loomed like the forest before her: huge and ominous and terrible. Imogen tried to imagine what six more years would hold. What would her life be like after over a decade of this torment?
All that came to mind was emptiness. Try as she might, there simply was no future there to picture. It wasn’t pain, it wasn’t even more of the same.
It was just Nothing.
An emptiness.
A void.
Somewhere nearby, she could hear the call of a raven.
Imogen realized that she could not imagine a future that was equally-bad-to or even worse-than her present moment because she could not imagine a future at all, and it was that, more than anything, that frightened her out of her spiral.
As much as the emptiness lured her – that wonderful, beautiful, silent Nothing – she was also afraid of it. Afraid to be lost to its expanse. Afraid to be swallowed up by the darkness, to cease to exist.
Abruptly, Imogen stood up. She didn’t know yet what she was doing, but it felt important. It felt like the most important thing she had ever done.
For lack of anyone else to share her revelations with, she spoke aloud to Flora. “I need to make it to thirty,” she said. “Just a few more years, that’s it.”
Flora chewed a mouthful of weeds and did not answer.
Imogen stepped up to Flora now, gently stroking the horse’s long neck. “That’s how old Mama was when she left, you know. I wanna see–” and here Imogen paused as tears clouded her vision, surprising her with their sudden onset. “I wanna see what was so damned world-shattering about thirty that she had to go. If I can make it that far, if I can understand… well, then maybe I’ll be done. But not before.”
Flora turned towards Imogen and regarded her blankly. Imogen stroked the horse’s nose. “I owe it to myself to make it that far.”
(Imogen did not acknowledge, even to herself, what she might do after she made it that far – if she made it that far. She was not ready to look that kind of darkness in the eye. Not yet.)
Suddenly, the absurd loneliness of this ‘conversation’ – if it could even be called that – hit her and Imogen found herself laughing bitterly. With a mirthless snort, she leaned into Flora and pressed her forehead into the horse’s mane. “Not like you can keep me honest about that promise anyway. What are you gonna do about it? Nuzzle me until I agree with you?”
Flora took her cue and nuzzled Imogen’s hand. She was just looking for treats, Imogen was sure, but it was a nice moment all the same. Imogen indulged her with half a carrot from her pocket.
Imogen breathed deeply, gathering herself. There was a certain calm to the decision. At the very least, she didn’t have to think about it – not really – for six more years. That was plenty of time. Six years was not a real future by any means, but kicking that yawning void down the proverbial road helped, if only for now.
If nothing had caught her eye about this ‘living’ business in that time, she supposed she’d have her decision. But not before.
She gave Flora’s neck a pat as if to say, well, that’s that, and hoisted herself back into the saddle. With a click of her tongue and a gentle tug on the reins, she redirected Flora back towards town.
14 Brussendar, 841 PD
“Just a bit to the left with the light, if you wouldn’t mind?”
Imogen nodded, one hand held aloft, keeping her dancing lights hovering a few feet away. With a slight curl of one finger and a turn of her wrist, she drifted the orbs to the side so they cleared Laudna’s shoulder and illuminated the rock face in front of her.
“Thank you, Imogen, that’s perfect just there,” Laudna said. There was a pause before she added, “You know, it’s truly incredible how quickly your magic use has improved. You’re very capable.”
Imogen smiled at that, feeling a blush warm her cheeks, even as she swelled with pride at the praise. Laudna was right. She had improved. It amazed her how effortless it was, how much more control she had. It felt good.
What a difference a few months could make.
“It helps that I’ve had an excellent tutor lately,” she said, because Laudna deserved to be appreciated too.
“Yes, well–” Laudna said and fidgeted a little under the full force of Imogen’s attention, as if the compliment was an itch she couldn’t quite scratch. “I still think it’s quite impressive what you’ve been able to achieve – what you would have achieved on your own one way or another, I’m sure.”
“Maybe,” Imogen said, thoughtfully. She supposed it was possible that she would have gotten to this point eventually – finally out of Gelvaan and learning how to view her magic as a gift and not a curse – but it wasn’t likely. And in any case, she was glad it happened this way. It wouldn’t feel right without Laudna.
(Nothing felt right without Laudna, not anymore.)
“Anyway,” Imogen continued, having mercy on Laudna and redirecting the attention, “I believe you and Pâté were about to tell a story?”
At the mention of the story, Laudna’s face lit up like a candle and Imogen felt the flame of affection in her own chest flare in response.
They were camped under a small stone out-cropping for the night. It wasn’t quite a cave, but it had enough of an overhang to provide a bit of shelter and – as it turned out – a backdrop for the elaborate shadow puppet show Laudna wanted to put on.
With Imogen’s dancing lights as a spotlight, she started reenacting what she deemed “a classic Tal’Dorei fairy tale.” She puppeteered Pâté with one hand to play the lead and used the other hand – partially transformed into her Form of Dread – to play all other parts.
The story was a fable about two children who visited a witch in a house made of sweets. Imogen thought she had heard a variation on this story before, but with a few changes to key details. The witch did lure the children in with her irresistible sweets, like Imogen remembered, but Laudna was quick to interject that the witch had really just wanted to make friends. And besides, Laudna had added, she was also the unfortunate victim of quite a bit of trespassing, so really it was only fair.
(If there were any similarities to real-world events, Imogen didn’t comment on them.)
Imogen looked on fondly as Laudna lost herself in the story. The natural sing-song quality of Laudna’s voice rose and fell in exaggerated intervals to enhance the drama, like a singer warming up on scales and arpeggios. Laudna would hunch over and make herself small to play the children and then broaden her shoulders until she was expansive and powerful to play the witch. The shadows she cast flitted across the wall like so many elegant spiders – like Laudna herself.
Imogen did her best to be an exemplary audience member, clapping and cheering at all the right moments. Not that it was difficult. Laudna was as engaging as she was enthusiastic – which was to say: very. (Although on one occasion, Imogen got so caught up in Laudna’s story-telling that she accidentally let her dancing lights expire, leaving the two of them in total darkness for a few moments before she could recast the spell.)
Eventually, Laudna brought the story to a close with punctuated finality: “And they were never… seen… again!”
Imogen applauded and mimed tossing a bouquet of flowers onto an imaginary stage. Laudna dipped her middle and pointer fingers, dropping Pâté into a gracious bow.
Just then, as if in response to Laudna’s dramatic ending, a sharp gust of wind whistled through their campsite. Pâté swung on his sinewy strings and even Imogen’s dancing lights were buffeted side to side.
Although it was a warm summer wind, Imogen found herself suppressing a shiver as the phantom memory of another storm washed over her: red and violent and all-consuming. She looked up to the sky and found that the stars were now all but hidden behind clouds.
“Storm’s blowin’ in,” she said, nodding above her with her chin. “I suppose it’s a good thing we’ve got a little cover tonight.”
Laudna followed Imogen’s motion and looked up. “Well would you look at that. So it is. You know, it’s remarkable how quickly the weather changes here in Marquet. Just a few hours ago, the sky was completely clear.”
“That’ll happen this time of year,” Imogen said. “The Taloned Highlands always get fast-movin’ storms in the summer.” As she spoke, she started to hunker down in her bedroll, still feeling an unnatural chill that could not be accounted for by the warm summer’s night.
Laudna was also starting to bed down for the night but paused for a moment at that. She cocked her head to the side in what Imogen thought was an adorable display of confusion. “Summer,” she mused. “It is, isn’t it? My goodness how the time passes. What is it now, mid-Brussendar?”
“I… yeah,” Imogen said. “I suppose it is.”
Unaware of the significance of the date, Launda continued, “The thirteenth? Fourteenth?”
“Fourteenth, I think,” Imogen said, somewhat distantly. Another year. How had it come around again so quickly? The utter surprise of it froze her for a moment.
(What a privilege it was to lose track of time. What a relief not to track each day – each hour – as it passed, gritting her teeth through the agony.)
“Imogen?” Laudna asked, hesitantly, interrupting Imogen’s thought spiral. She leaned across the narrow gap between their bedrolls to place a hand on Imogen’s forearm, soothing the skin there with a gentle back-and-forth motion of her thumb. “Are you alright?”
“What? Oh, I’m fine. Sorry, Laudna. Just got distracted thinking about the time passing, that’s all.”
Laudna’s face creased with concern and anxiety. “It has been quite a while on the road hasn’t it? You must be terribly homesick.” Even as she spoke, Imogen heard snippets of thoughts that reflected a very different worry. Too long… sick of this… sick of you.
Imogen couldn’t help but laugh. “Homesick? Laudna, are we talkin’ about the same town? The one that made me so miserable I couldn’t wait to leave?” She smiled fondly and shook her head. Then she placed her own hand over Laudna’s where it rested on her arm and gave it a comforting squeeze. “I don’t miss it, not for one minute.”
Laudna seemed to accept this and relaxed a little. The line between her eyebrows smoothed.
Suddenly, Laudna jumped, clasping her hands together in excitement. “Oh, Imogen! I almost forgot! I got you something today.”
Imogen looked at her in confusion. “You did? What for?”
“Oh you know. Just because!” An endearing little wiggle of excitement worked its way up from Laudna’s belly to her shoulders as happiness coursed through her. “I saw something at the market and thought of you.”
Laudna produced a small cloth pouch from her pack, then extracted herself from her bedroll and scooted over to sit next to Imogen. Imogen sat up and took the pouch from Laudna with unsteady hands. She searched Laudna’s gaze curiously, as if looking for permission to open it.
Laudna nodded. “Go on.”
Imogen loosened the cinch at the top of the pouch and tipped its contents out into her opposite hand.
It was a small horse figurine, carved from a cool, smooth stone – maybe marble or granite. Imogen explored the carving with her fingers, running the pad of her thumb over the rough indentations that formed the mane, down to the smooth curve of its neck and back.
“It’s a worry stone,” Laudna said. “I thought – since she can’t be here with you in person anymore – maybe she could comfort you this way instead.”
Flora.
“Laudna…” Imogen said, suddenly at a loss for words. “You didn’t have to.”
Laudna swayed a little, bumping her shoulder against Imogen’s as she did. “Of course I didn’t have to,” she said, her voice dipping dramatically in pitch on the word have, “I wanted to. And it’s only a small thing really – so much less than you deserve – but I thought you might enjoy it, and of course I know you miss Flora so terribly much so it’s really not the same but–”
Laudna. Imogen interjected mentally, as if in doing so she could halt Laudna’s self-deprecating thoughts and replace them with her own affection. I love it. Thank you.
Imogen leaned over and pulled Laudna into a fierce hug. She wrapped her arms tight around Laudna’s shoulders and felt Laudna’s arms wrap around her waist in return. She buried her face in Laudna’s hair, inhaled soft earth and fallen leaves.
For a moment, they simply held each other. Crickets chirped somewhere nearby. An owl called into the night. The wind whistled through their campsite, kicking leaves along the ground.
When they pulled back, Imogen considered telling Laudna the significance of the day. After all, there had already been gift-giving. It would be nice to have someone to celebrate with, for once. And it had been so long since she had bothered to celebrate anything at all.
At the same time, Imogen knew Laudna would feel terrible for not having planned some grand celebration for her, complete with multiple presents and cake and a little party just for the two of them. Of course, that wasn’t fair to Laudna at all – given that she hadn’t known – but then, Laudna was rarely fair to herself.
No, Imogen decided, this day was a perfect celebration just the way it was. Even if she could have taken a year to plan, she wouldn’t change a thing.
She’d tell Laudna in time for them to celebrate together next year.
It struck her that “next year” was a concept she wouldn’t have dared to entertain just a few months prior. She had barely had the capacity to consider “tomorrow” or even “this afternoon,” let alone something so lofty and aspirational as “next year.”
Imogen laughed aloud, clear and bright.
She was making plans. What a gift it was to make plans, to be excited to make plans.
Laudna looked at her, bemused but smiling. “Imogen?”
Imogen shook her head, and there was still laughter in her voice when she said, “I just got caught up thinkin’ what a wonderful day it’s been.”
(With you, she added, mentally. Because it felt too sacred, too precious to say out loud.)
Laudna hummed, soft and thoughtful and full of understanding. “It has been, hasn’t it? Truly wonderful.”
(With you, came the echoing sentiment across their bond.)
Imogen took that feeling and tucked it deep down in her chest. She shut the lid and locked it away – not to hide it, but to keep it safe. She wanted to take it out later and turn it around in her mind. To look at it again and again from every angle until she finally understood it. To be warmed by its light.
“Come on,” she said, “let’s get to bed.”
—
Later that night, Imogen lay awake on her bedroll, listening to the pounding rain outside their shelter. She ran a finger up and down Flora’s smooth stone flank and reflected on her promise to herself from two years prior.
What a different life that had been.
All of a sudden, four more years wasn’t nearly enough time for everything she still wanted to do. There were answers to find and places to visit and spells to learn.
(There were also more Laudna stories to hear. Laudna recipes to taste. Laudna smiles to catalog.)
Imogen wrapped her fist around the stone horse and clutched it to her chest. “I’m gonna stay,” she whispered into the night, “for good. I promise.”
It was a new pledge – to herself and to the real Flora, all those miles away – that she would not revisit her previous agreement. Not on her thirtieth birthday, nor anytime after. It was a commitment to live. The ominous darkness in front of her hadn’t disappeared, but she could see a path through it now – one that she wanted to explore.
Someday, she hoped, she would greet the next decade with a smile and walk right on past it – to the next and the next and, eventually, the rest of her life.
She felt her vision blur with tears at the idea of it.
Hope felt like a too-big longsword that she was still learning how to wield. An ill-fitting weapon that she held with shaky, fumbling hands. She tired easily from the weight of it and could not hold it for long. But she held it still – knew that like any weapon, it would protect her.
Maybe, she thought, with time and practice, she could wield it like a true warrior.
14 Brussendar, 843 PD
On the evening of the 14th day of Brussendar, there was, appropriately, a storm on the horizon.
The storms in Jrusar were milder, Imogen had learned. Without the wide open fields of the Taloned Highlands, the weather didn’t seem to work itself into quite the same frenzy.
(She had to admit that it was quite a nice benefit to city life, although perhaps the only one.)
All the same, when the storm clouds started to roll in from the horizon in the late afternoon, Imogen and Laudna thought it was best to get back to Zhudana’s as quickly as possible so as not to be caught out in the rain.
After all, they had big plans for the evening: a dual celebration for Imogen’s birthday and for successfully submitting an inquiry at the Starpoint Conservatory.
The pair rushed through the remainder of their errands, splurging on rare indulgences like wine and chocolates and fine cheese for their evening meal. By the time they scurried over to the gondola for the ride back to the Core Spire, the smell of rain was in the air.
Imogen felt her stomach drop each time the car swayed in the wind. She grasped Laudna’s hand like a lifeline and marveled that – for someone who had been sinking for the better part of a decade – all she had really needed was an anchor.
At long last, Imogen and Laudna shuffled into their tiny home.
“We’re going to have to make your birthday extra special this year,” Laudna was saying as they made their way into the kitchen. “It’s only fair.”
“I know, Laudna,” Imogen said with feigned exasperation. It was an intentionally thin veneer below which warmth and fondness bubbled up, smoothing away any edge or bite. “You haven’t let me forget it.”
“I have to, really,” Laudna continued, “since I have to make up for that first year when I was so rudely deprived of the opportunity to celebrate you properly.”
“Don’t you think you already made up for it last year?” Imogen asked, picking up the script of what was now a well-trodden running joke between them – each beat as familiar as if they’d rehearsed it.
“Not yet,” Laudna said, as Imogen had known she would. “Maybe after next year. We’ll have to see.” Her tone was haughty, affronted – as if she’d endured some great injustice – but a sly smirk curled at the corner of her mouth and betrayed her amusement.
“Alright, Laudna,” Imogen said, just as she had the year before. She bit her lip to keep from smiling too widely. “One more year and then we’ll see.”
Imogen tucked herself into Laudna’s side, relishing in the way she fit so perfectly under Laudna’s arm, the way her head was just the right height to duck into Laudna’s shoulder, the way her arm fell so naturally around Laudna’s waist.
She hoped that maybe, if they stood there long enough, intertwined and interwoven, their bones would fuse together like branches grafted onto the same tree – growing together and growing stronger for it. She wanted to hold Laudna up – not like a crutch, but like a trellis – and be held by her in return. To cling to her like a vine.
Laudna kissed the top of her head and lingered there for a moment, her nose against Imogen’s hair.
Imogen knew that whatever her twenty-eighth year held, she would face it like this.
Outside, the first drops of rain started to fall.