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Essek is floating, and inches below his feet, detached from him, the world turns at a breakneck speed.
This is not strictly true, he knows. He built the spell himself; the gravitational element ties the caster to the point of the planet and then moves relative to that point at will. It was actually quite tricky to formulate—he had had to factor in the precise speed of Exandria’s rotation, accounting for changes in latitude, tidal variation, and, as much as possible, the effects of potential anomalies. Whether he is here, in the Empire, or somewhere in the Ashkeepers, the effect holds without issue.
And yet, he can feel it turning, too fast to follow, and ahead of him, he can see an abyss, rushing up to meet him. He can already feel the lurch of it in his stomach, the drop.
The procession arrives in the front of his home. His mother’s body is still in his arms, as peaceful as a body can be with a knife in its chest, gravity lessening its pull upon her to allow him to carry her. He would not have forgiven himself if anyone else had taken the weight from him. The rest continue on, without pause, and he stops at the door. “My queen.”
He only sees her stop out of the corner of his eye, his head bowed. The queen’s voice is softer than he is used to. “Essek?”
He has little time. There are many things that must be done, and some need to be done sooner than others, but all are urgent. He has all the time in the world now and yet none at all.
“There are,” he begins, and his voice is stilted. A product of grief, or so the queen will imagine it. He is not so sure himself, but more than one thing can be true. It is a difficult thing to remember. “Things that we must discuss. News, that I have uncovered just before… well.”
She does not balk at this admission. He had not initiated this ritual, nor had he been given any say in its timing. Not everyone will understand that, but at least she does. “How urgent?”
“Urgent,” he says. “But… if you would permit me, an hour at most—”
“Of course.” He is still holding his mother’s body. “If there is any assistance you require—”
“No,” he says, too quickly, then, “not now. Most arrangements can wait, but I must travel to Bazzoxan, immediately.”
There is a moment of shifting among the guards accompanying them, those who had perhaps not thought of the Taskhand, though they almost certainly have worked or trained or sparred with him. An afterthought to many, as much as the command he holds is an afterthought to most in Rosohna.
“Find me when you are ready,” she says gently, knowing that he of all people will not linger. She turns away and the contingent follows.
Bazzoxan is tense as ever, for which he is grateful, a far cry from the mundanity of Rosohna. There, life goes on. Here, every day is a struggle, every moment a potential fight. He does not call ahead, so he does not teleport directly to his brother’s door; instead he enters the primary administrative building of the outpost, asking whether the Taskhand is indisposed. No one questions the urgency of his request; his presence alone likely conveys as much as they need to understand.
He is directed to the small corner office that he knows well enough, though he has only seen it on a number of occasions. It is not much to remember; a perfunctory arrangement of furniture, a small set of tomes upon the room’s single shelf—mostly history and indexes of demonic beings, as well as one Abyssal dictionary and a few thin books of poetry. Taskhand Verin Thelyss in the center of it, looking up from a report with a still-furrowed brow.
Rarely could Essek recall seeing him with such a frown upon his face in Rosohna. Here it is ubiquitous.
The frown deepens upon his face. “What are you doing here?”
It is not accusatory, but it might as well be a knife to the chest.
The door has only just closed when he hunches, his feet hitting the floor, his hands catching the back of a chair before he falls—at least the third time today, which may be a record for this decade. The sobs rip through him as though they are something outside of him, beyond him, a frigid wind, and he allows them; it will make what he must do after this more manageable if he expunges this from his body, if he empties himself of it. Without it perhaps he will be unrecognizable to his brother, but that is why he is here now. Verin is too insightful, knows him better than anyone; he can lie to his mother about what he is, but not his brother.
And he cannot risk Verin knowing. It is a wonder he still has anything left to lose.
Verin is frozen, half-standing, fingers hovering just above the table as though considering reaching out, consoling him, but unable to make himself move further. They have both always been caught by different forms of gravity. “You said you were working on it.”
He laughs. He feels stupified. He feels struck dumb. “Evidently she deemed my contributions not fruitful enough to be worth the wait.”
“Not worth the fucking wait—” Verin cuts himself off with a hiss and turns away, looking out the one window in his office. Essek can no longer see his face, and he says nothing. Finally, his brother turns back to him with a wretched expression. “You didn’t even come and get me—”
“Do you think I had any say in the matter?” he shouts. It feels good to raise his voice, to yell at someone who might forgive him for it. “She barely gave me a moment to prepare before she and the queen had me marching down to that light-forsaken forest—”
“You have held her at bay for months! You have never held your tongue even when you knew it would pain her, why was this—”
Essek’s fist is backed by wiry arms when it collides with Verin’s cheekbone, little force behind it, not even enough to leave the kind of mark left upon him earlier by a much more capable soldier than he, for which he had hastily downed a healing potion from a stash of his own making that he has been squirreling away for weeks now, just in case. It had not been the circumstances in which he’d expected to use it, but it had eliminated any hint of a bruise before the Bright Queen might have seen it.
Verin’s head barely moves with the impact, but he falls silent, and Essek, breathing hard, takes the moment to rip open his wristpocket and drop the item he seeks unceremoniously on the table between them. The blade falls with a clatter.
The sound heralds Verin’s expression turning from incredulous to furious. “Get that thing out of my fucking sight.”
Essek cannot catch his breath, as though it was his lungs being pierced, his heart severed. Every gasp of air feels as though they are ripped from him. In their place there is nothing—a cold absence. “You did not have to wield it! She did not make you—force you!—to fucking wield it!”
Verin picks up the ceremonial blade by the hilt and, in one deft motion, whips it into the wall. It lodges just below his shelf of books. “Fuck this.”
Beyond both of their reaches, it vibrates slightly from the impact. Essek watches it, like a sound wave, running down a string. It has neutralized the tension for the time being. It will almost certainly build again, knowing his brother. Knowing himself. “I couldn’t agree more.”
“How was she? In the end.”
“It wasn’t her.” He wishes he could believe that, but her voice in his ear is still ringing. He has no question that his mother, the mother he had known for so much of his life, had acted today. If she had known—if she had not been herself—the queen would already know. He would already be in chains. It is likely his head would already have been separated from his shoulders.
But he is still here, and he will not waste the effort she has taken to keep him alive. He knows what he must do.
“She was right,” he says, and it feels like pulling his own teeth, like a dream, but he manages the words. “Nothing could’ve been done. It wasn’t her, in the end.”
Verin heaves a mighty sigh, his shoulders rising and then falling, his eyes still on the blade embedded in his wall. “Well, thank you. For telling me. Now get that thing out of my fucking sight.”
Essek pulls it from the wall, mending the damage to the wood on instinct as he does. He will not leave his brother any mess to clean up.
It returns to his wristpocket, and he turns back. Verin still stares at the spot, hand leaning heavily upon the table. “Essek.”
He pauses, hand raised to leave. “Yes?”
Verin circles the table and grasps him, dragging him into a hug.
He stumbles forward into his brother’s chest. He hadn’t even realized his feet were on the ground until this moment.
Essek stands still for a moment, this movement too much for the shock of the day, then his arms rise to wrap around his brother, and he buries his face in Verin’s shoulder. The sobs wrack him once again, beyond his control.
Good. This is good. Release it now.
Verin kisses his temple once before letting him go. The cold air hits him where his brother had momentarily held it at bay, and he remembers what he has to do. What his mother has tasked him with. What must come next.
Verin cannot know. Verin cannot even suspect, lest he too become caught up in this web. His mother is dead; his friend will join her soon enough. His brother cannot follow.
“War is coming,” he says, and Verin freezes. “Not to Bazzoxan, at least not yet, but… I fear I will have more responsibility to contend with, in the coming weeks.” He is privately relieved that his brother has been tasked with such a dire post; it will keep him occupied away from Rosohna and, with any luck, out of the war’s reach. “If you don’t hear from me for some time…”
He trails off, unable to finish the sentence with anything that might be suitable, might make up for what he has already done, what he has failed to do.
“You fucking asshole,” Verin scoffs. “I love you too.”
Verin squeezes him once more before letting go. Essek turns, sniffing once, wiping his eyes on his wrist before he leaves the relative comfort of this office.
“Be well,” he whispers, and pulls his gaze away from his brother.
He sets his jaw and rises from the ground the moment he is out of Verin’s line of sight. The world turns as he leaves Bazzoxan behind.