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“I must say, you look a trifle worse for the wear today, brother.”
“Come down here so I can
murder you.”
Issavan blinked at him, his expression barely visible from this distance because somehow he had scaled a
cliff and not an insubstantial one, either. Nothing but fifty to one hundred feet of sheer
up separated them—all of it flat, dusty red rock with only the occasional, widely dispersed and untrustworthy-looking dry root to grapple for a possible hand hold. Kaleth could not begin to guess how his brother had managed to scale it.
Issa was a capable climber, certainly – quick and nimble, light and handy with most any task that involved making himself scarce or getting himself to safety in short order – but this, no.
This was beyond even Issavan’s talents, and Kaleth assured himself he need only find the path up, because there
had to be one. His brother simply was not that physically capable.
“Strange…” Issavan said, and Kaleth struggled to ignore the way his heart leapt in minute panic each time his brother took a step as he paced, slowly, along the cliff’s edge, every time terrified afresh that the lip would simply give and crumble or Issa would somehow misstep and he’d have to watch his brother come tumbling down from that impossible height to his all but certain death, “…but for some reason that offer doesn’t strike me as a particularly inviting incentive at present. Perhaps you could come up with another suggestion on how we might spend our time together?”
Gritting his teeth, Kaleth resigned himself to scouring the cliff face, searching intently through the rest of the waning day until he found his brother’s way up, however long it took. Except that he never found it. Late day faded to dusk and dusk into night, and he came no closer to finding a way up than when he’d begun. To further agitate matters, somewhere along the line he lost track of his brother – he looked up, at some point in his search, after a long silence, and found him simply gone – which left a knot of concern in his gut, but also
frustration.
Despite technically being the “hunter” under the given circumstances and Issavan the “prey”, by the end of the evening, Kaleth felt distinctly as though he was being toyed with. Mercilessly. Like a small rodent, running ceaselessly without hope of an endpoint, teased in infinite circles, knowing not that it was only wearing itself thin all the while under the watchful eye of some unseen predator amusing itself from afar.
He didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until Issavan woke him.
A quiet rustling, first—purposeful, meant to stir him, but not enough to fully rouse him from sleep—and then, “No camp tonight, brother?”
Kaleth jerked fully awake at the sound of his brother’s voice, the shock of it abrupt and disorienting. He blinked, and then frowned, his tired eyes taking their time bringing his brother into focus. Issa looked starkly white against the deep, blue-black backdrop of the night forest—all flinty, ethereally pale skin that caught the moonlight like a nymph—and for a surreal instant, Kaleth wanted to reach out and touch, to prove he wasn’t still dreaming.
Then, he remembered the cliff, and forced himself up, tossing a befuddled glance back over his shoulder because
how—? “You…” He shook his head, as though trying to knock sense into the situation simply by shaking himself more awake. “When did…how did you come down?” he asked. “Where’s the path?”
Issa’s head tilted, his expression lazily curious, like one inspecting a very peculiar insect or an oddly behaving dog. “Path?” he repeated.
“You didn’t scale that cliff.”
“No,” Issavan responded, “I don’t suppose I did. And how does that pertain to this conversation?”
“How did you get down?” Kaleth snapped, tired and sore and exasperated, frustrated that his brother was refusing to acknowledge the obvious and being purposefully obtuse. “Heavens, forget that, how did you get
up?” He pushed himself to his feet, and Issavan’s eyes trailed over him in a way that made heat and
interest pool in ways and places they absolutely did not belong. “Issa-”
“Fairies,” Issavan answered crisply, and Kaleth blinked.
“Fai—what?” He approached, and half expected Issavan to retreat, but he didn’t. “I asked-”
“And I answered,” Issavan said. “Fairies. Thousands of little…tiny…” He rubbed his fingers together in thin air as though trying to pinch his next words out of the night itself, “…pixies, banded together helpfully in a magical cloud of pink and gold dust to transport me up there.”
“You’re a liar.”
“You knew that.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Now
that,” Issavan countered, “is not true at all. I’m a fantastic liar when I put my mind to actually making my lies
believable…”
“Where’s the path?” Kaleth repeated. “How did you get down and up?” When close enough, he caught Issavan’s wrist, part of his brain still wired to anticipate his brother up and vanishing at any second—skittering off, like a startled rabbit. But Issavan’s pulse beat at a calm, steady rate under his fingers. Cool, collected, put-together. And yet, it only felt like a striking reminder of how slim—frail—he was under his veneer of self-assurance, his skin thin and warm and soft under Kaleth’s own rough, calloused grip. The word ‘delicate’ came to mind, and Kaleth pursed his lips.
“There is no path,” Issavan said.
“You’re ly-”
“I’m not.”
Remembering his promise to himself the night before, Kaleth abandoned the dead-end argument, no longer caring enough to pursue it, and said instead, “I’m tying you up tonight. To a tree.”
“Mm…” Issa tilted his head again pensively and a lock of loose black hair fell against his throat, curving along it like a lick of black paint that Kaleth wanted nothing more than to brush aside and- “Here I thought you would be the type to go for something more ‘traditional’ the first time to express your…sentimentality,” He stressed that word with dripping distaste and the briefest scrunch of a grimace that made clear his thoughts on
that subject, “…but if you’d rather move straight to restraints and exotic outdoor locations, by all means…”
Kaleth grit his teeth and tugged, jerking Issa along with him, though not entirely sure yet where he intended on heading—his supplies, he decided, yes, that made sense. The makings of the tent he’d never found the time to set up. “I tire of your games. You know very well that I
meant-”
“What?” Issavan questioned, nonplussed, but clearly unbothered by Kaleth’s rough treatment. He came along cooperatively as Kaleth led the way, not even bothering to struggle against the too tight – possibly bruising – grip on his wrist. The thought of leaving bruises on Issavan’s skin – neat little darkened purple blotches like trail makers, property stamps, not big but
there – had no right to make Kaleth’s blood heat and his insides twist. He didn’t want to hurt his brother. He
didn’t.
And if he thought this strongly enough and insisted it to himself repeatedly enough, perhaps eventually it would become true.
“You can’t possibly still think it will
keep me…” Issavan said, drawing Kaleth’s thoughts helpfully back off of dangerous paths. When Kaleth made no move to respond, Issa continued, “Have you learned nothing the past several days? Has it not occurred to you yet to
question why I let you catch up with me if I thought you could keep me against my will?”
Kaleth avoided looking at him. “If I tie the knots tight enough,” he responded, “…they will keep you.”
Issavan laughed. Or rather, he made a sound masquerading as a laugh that came out far too sharp and mocking to sound jovial in the least. “You are stupider than I thought…which is impressive, considering how little I think of your-”
Whatever remained of his sentence cut off in lei of a startled grunt and the rush of the air from his lungs as his back hit a tree with a hearty
thump. The bark scratched, catching roughly at the thin fabric of his clothes, but though he reached up instinctively when Kaleth shoved, looping his fingers over Kaleth’s wrists as though to shove him off, when the surprise wore off, he simply stilled, patient and curious as his eyes back open and up at Kaleth.
“Have I insulted you?” he asked.
“No,” Kaleth responded gruffly. “I’m fairly accustomed to your low opinion of my
wit.” Issavan snorted, and his eyes, when Kaleth met them, were reflective and still: two cool, glassy pools of silver. Lakes, Kaleth thought. Lakes that he would most certainly drown in. “What would you have me do?” he asked, and the question abruptly quiet, but rougher to his own ears than he expected. As if it scratched its way out of his throat and still ended up as a whisper.
Issavan’s smile was exquisite poison. “That, brother…is a very long list.”
Twenty minutes later, he sighed, wriggling disinterestedly as Kaleth finished knotting off the last of the rope binding him to the thick, sturdy trunk at his back. When Kaleth came forward, through with his work, Issavan shot him an unimpressed look.
“You might have at least let me aid you in setting up camp before you bound me,” he pointed out. “You’ll have a rough enough job of it in the dark as it is…”
“I’m sleeping on the ground,” Kaleth grumped, trying to keep his sour mood out of his voice and failing magnificently. “No need for a camp.”
“Have you eaten?” If he hadn’t known better, Kaleth
might have thought Issavan sounded almost concerned. But he knew better.
“I’ll eat in the morning.” He turned, giving his back to his brother, and swore he
heard Issa’s teeth grit and grind.
“So you’ll just leave me here?” Issa snapped. “Alone? To wait for the entire night on my feet in the cold?”
“Not alone, brother,” Kaleth said without turning, and a minute later, he came back with his sleeping mat, stretching it out a good ten or so feet from Issa’s tree. “I’ll be within easy calling distance should you experience nightmares.” He thought a moment. “Or require me to sing you a lullaby.”
“I’d like a lullaby.”
Kaleth lay out on his mat, shutting his eyes. Rocks and twigs prodded at him no matter how he arranged himself, but he was a seasoned hunter and traveler and thus accustomed enough to it to avoid letting it bother him much. “I don’t see why you’re complaining so,” he said, quieting as he prepped for sleep. “As you said, it’s not as if it will
keep you, correct?” He folded his arms under his head and shut his eyes. “Escape as you see fit.”
Issa said nothing more on the subject, but Kaleth took some comfort in
imagining him glowering sordidly (though he couldn’t make out his expression in the dark), trapped and uncomfortable and defeated. Petty revenge, certainly, for the troubles he’d caused Kaleth thus far, but worth it, he thought. It wasn’t as though sleep would be impossible to attain while upright and bound.
Sleep took its time in coming, but come it did, and when Kaleth slept, he dreamed. In his dream, Issa came to him, the surroundings in the dream all but identical to reality. He appeared beside Kaleth’s mat, complaining of the cold night air and the inconvenience of catching rest with ropes digging into his arms, and – since it was a dream – Kaleth grumbled as his brother knelt but lifted his blanket nonetheless, allowing for Issa’s trim body to slip down and slide up against him, warm, close, and impressively real. Like when they were children, and one of them heard dark things in the night and sought solace in the other’s company.
Perhaps they were children in this dream. Perhaps he was seven again, and Issa five, Issa’s hands the size of teacups or eggshells and hair still curly and wild, black as ravens’ feathers and soft as swans’ down. He missed those days, when his brother loved and trusted him; nothing between them to push them apart. So, Kaleth nudged his head down, tucking it into the dark, wavy tresses of his brother’s hair, and weaving an arm protectively over his waist before mumbling, “Don’t leave…” and Issa’s sigh was the wind.
“You’ll find me come evening,” he answered gently. “Go back to sleep.”
So Kaleth did.
When he woke to sunlight, he remembered the dream, and wondered as he rose if, in fact, it weren’t a dream at all, because when he looked, he found Issa’s rope bindings free from the tree and neatly coiled by the trunk, ready to be packed away. He found his things arranged tidily, packed mostly into his carrying satchel and otherwise arranged far more precisely than the disorganized scatter he’d left them in the night before. And his blanket smelled of Issa—of spice and smoke, and the crisp anticipatory air of an approaching storm. And rain. Because to Kaleth, though it never made a whit of logical sense, Issavan always smelled of smoke and rain.
As he was readying the last of his things, preparing to head out once more after his brother, he found a note slipped into the folds of his blanket.
My trail will be difficult to follow today, read Issavan’s unmistakably neat, pragmatic scroll,
and for that I apologize. To save time, travel west in the morning until you reach a narrow brook, and follow that upstream until its pebbles turn white and glint beneath the surface of the water.
Issavan Bhelarose of Ardensdale
Scowling, Kaleth almost crumpled it. He meant to crumple it. He
ought to have crumpled it…but he didn’t. Instead, he folded it, tucking it into his belt pocket and heading out to look for his brother’s trail anyway, ignoring the instructions. Surely, his brother was simply buying himself time. Leading Kaleth in circles. Playing games again…
Follow a brook until its pebbles were white? And
then what? Issa would just be…waiting there for him? Come
find him there? No. It made no sense.
Except, an hour later, Kaleth had found no sign of Issavan’s trail, and – cursing creatively – he shouldered his things, tugged the note back out to glance at it once, briefly, and then headed off in the opposite direction of the rising sun.
He found the brook quickly, and followed it as directed, heading up and up along it. Sure enough—though partly to his surprise—the pebbles beneath the surface, originally black at the outset of his journeying, started to lighten. Occasionally, he would spot one or two light grey splotches among the black and dark grey. Then a few intermittent white ones. Eventually, close to noon with the sun high above him, the entire stream was nothing but bright, glinting stones under an immaculately clear stream.
Unfortunately, he found nothing in the vicinity: no further hints as to what path he ought to venture down next, and certainly no sign of Issavan. Swearing again, but with nothing better to do, Kaleth collapsed to a sit on the nearest boulder by the stream and shut his eyes, angling his face up, towards the sun.
“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” he said to no one, but even he didn’t believe it, and after a protracted moment’s rest, he pulled the note back out from his belt, not sure what he expected to find. Something else written on the back perhaps, or maybe somehow he’d missed something when he’d read, except-
Good work. You’re a little late now, thanks to your initial dallying, but you should still be able to make it well before sundown. Once you feel rested enough, search the ground around you for a small, bright yellow flower, about the size of a Tercian gold piece.
Issavan Bhelarose of Ardensdale
Kaleth blinked.
He was…imagining things. Because that-
Then,
as he watched, something began to scribble itself onto the page beside Issa’s signature. Looping lines, curving, coming together—it looked like someone was sketching there, except the lines were drawing themselves. A flower. A tiny, narrow-petaled flower with seven blades. Color dripped into the petals, bleeding neatly onto the page as if dripped from a brush, and a moment later, the flower was yellow as the sun with faint black tips at the end of each petal.
Without thinking, he looked to the ground. He searched, eyes roaming over the thick grass, mud and stones. Very soon after, he found it, nestled up against a nearby boulder sunk halfway into the brook’s bank, the flower’s bright head just barely peeping out from under the stone’s shadow. Kaleth knelt, catching it gently between his two fingers to inspect it, making sure it was correct, but not tugging.
“Alright,” he said again to the thin air. “I’ve found it. Now what? Do you want me to-”
As he stared, the text on the parchment rippled, like the face of reflection. Then, in its place:
Pick it. Nothing more.
When he found his brother, Kaleth vowed silently, they were going to have a very long, very engaging talk about his magic tricks. For now, though…
He plucked the flower, and waited, half expecting further instructions to make themselves evident on the page. When they didn’t,though, he frowned, and glanced back to the flower in his hand. Why—?
Then he noticed the trail.
In place of the single, solitary golden flower tucked under the rock, a neat, winding line of them, like closely strung together breadcrumbs, lead off from the side of the bank and back into the surrounding forest where they disappeared out of sight, swallowed up by the trees. That, Kaleth supposed, spoke for itself, and so, without further instruction, he headed off to follow it.
It wound on for ages. After thinning substantially at the beginning – lessening from a steady line to a flower or two every couple feet – it carried on at a trickle for longer than Kaleth cared to count, and as he went, the forest grew progressively thicker. Smaller, airy trees with widely stretching branches that allowed for ample amounts of gold sunlight to spill onto the forest floor gradually gave way to larger, more condensed trees with thicker, dark foliage at their canopies so that soon, only specks of sunlight could work their way through.
Eventually, Kaleth lost track of the sun’s place in the sky.
Even after no sun could reach the forest floor, though, the trees continued to darken and grow ganglier, with knotted, gargantuan trunks and snaking roots that dove up out of the ground and back in at dangerous intervals, like winding limbs
trying to trip up even the most seasoned traveler. The forest quieted, too, as he went, the sounds of animals and life petering out into an almost sinister hush. As though nothing dared to move.
When the only color left in the scene was provided by the tiny, yellow flowers – splotched dots of life amidst the dark, graying forest around him – Kaleth very nearly gave up. Predictably, a moment before he made that decision, the forest broke into a clearing.
It happened so suddenly, he stumbled, squinting and jerking his hand up to cover his eyes against the sudden onslaught of light. And
color.
As he blinked, his wonderment grew, because this looked nothing like any woodland he’d ever set foot in. The grass – impossibly green and fine – seemed to glitter in the sun (dew, his mind provided helpfully, though that made no sense, logically, since it was late day now, not dawn), and it looked unfeasibly soft to the touch and inviting. Flowers of all colors sprung up in shoots around moss-covered boulders and the occasional young, spring-green tree. A lake, though, dominated the scene, and it looked perfect. All but unnaturally so, its waters pristine and – from what he could make out from a distance – crystal clear to the bottom, with nary a ripple to tarnish the glassy surface.
“You’re just in time.”
Kaleth’s head whipped around, eyes locking on his brother the next instant. Issavan looked serene, unhurried, for all that he seemed to have appeared out of thin air, as usual: mystic as the scenery but still out of place somehow. A swath of dark beauty amidst nothing but innocence.
“Late, actually,” Issa went on, “…but no matter. There is, fortunately, still ample time to accomplish the necessary tasks…”
“Where did you learn your craft?”
“Sorcery?” Issavan asked.
“Witchcraft.”
“It’s the same concept,” Issa pointed out, “…and ‘witch’ sounds far too much like an old, haggard woman for my standards, but if you prefer it, as you wish. I learned from Eloise.”
Kaleth blinked. “Elle? She’s been our loyal servant and best healer for years,” he objected. “How-”
“The best healing comes from magic, brother,” Issa pointed out primly. “However those who fear it might like to forget the fact…”
Kaleth remained wary. He knew Eloise, trusted her—as did his entire family—how could she have practiced something so vile directly under their noses? And taught it to Issa, no less? “When did you begin to learn?”
“Seven—no…” Issavan paused, thinking a moment. “Six summers of age, when I began,” he said.
“Six?” Kaleth nearly yelped the word. “But you were barely a child, how could she—why would she-?”
“I spotted her once, when she expected no visitors, and demanded that she show me,” Issa explained. “When she refused, I threatened to reveal what I’d seen to father. I knew she’d be terribly punished, if not sentenced to death…and she agreed to teach me.”
Disbelieving, Kaleth shook his head. “You were a sweet, mild-tempered child,” he insisted. “You wouldn’t have-”
“I was a quiet, well-behaved child,” Issa corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“You weren’t wicked.”
“You still don’t think I’m wicked now,” his brother pointed out, and Kaleth resisted the urge to grind his teeth.
“You aren’t,” he snapped, and then, before Issavan could get a word in, he went on. “Where are you leading me?”
Issa blinked. “Leading?”
“Each day you move. You make it clear you could escape me if you wished, but you don’t. You wait for me. You leave a trail for me to follow. You keep me coming for you, but each night, you leave again and travel on,” Kaleth said. “Where is all this going? What’s the point, where are we headed? And why do you need
me to be a part of it?”
Issavan smiled. “So there is a mind tucked away in there somewhere…however deeply it might be buried beneath your thick scull. I’m impressed, Kaleth, truly.”
“Where-”
“Here,” Issa answered, and Kaleth stared.
“You-” He looked then, again, around him. “Why?” he asked. “What’s here?”
“I’ll tell you,” Issa responded, approaching him now with lazy, predatory grace, “…but first…” Kaleth didn’t realize he’d taken a step back until his back met the trunk of a broad willow with a thud (
Where had that come from?), “…I’d like to show you one…more…magic trick…”
He wondered, in that instant, if this was what Issa had felt, backed up to a tree and about to be imprisoned, but no, he decided immediately after, Issa had not shown even the slightest sign of intimidation. And Kaleth, for all his experience as a seasoned fighter and in face of his best intentions, was indeed intimidated.
Issa seemed to pick up on this and inclined his head. “Are you afraid of me, brother?”
Kaleth thought about it. He ran his eyes over his brother – his light, narrow frame that Kaleth could pluck from the ground almost effortlessly if he chose – and then up, along his pale throat, past his lips, and to his eyes. Intimidated? Perhaps. Afraid? “No,” he said aloud. “I could still break your neck, if I saw fit.”
Issavan’s smile knotted something low in his gut. When Issa reached out, he caught Kaleth’s hand, drawing it up, up to his shoulder and then in so that Kaleth’s fingers rested loosely, low on the side of his neck and his thumb, if he brushed it, curved over the shape of Issavan’s Adam’s apple. Issa’s skin was warm against his – hot, even – and he wanted painfully to touch more. “Could you?” Issavan asked, the vibration of his words real and close under Kaleth’s fingers.
And Kaleth realized he couldn’t. However capable he might be, he would never be able to make himself injure Issavan. He shook his head, but when he opened his mouth-
Issavan kissed him. Leaning up—he must have risen onto his toes to reach him—he pressed his lips to Kaleth’s open mouth, and Kaleth
shuddered. His fingers curled, cupping—clutching—at the back of Issa’s neck and tangling into his hair. He gripped and Issa bit, and rolled his body forward, jutting their hips together and
fuck-
Issa’s lips tasted like sugarcane. Sweet, but bitter, too, as though something were on them. Something…
Kaleth blinked dizzily as the sides of his vision swam, and his head rushed, as though overcome with sudden vertigo. When he attempted to move to catch his balance, though, his legs felt rooted. No—his brow pinched together in confusion—they
were rooted: thick, live vines around his feet, winding like dark snakes upwards, binding his legs. His heart gave a panicked thud, but when he jerked his spare hand he found that, too, was rapidly being bound, his wrist trapped.
Left without options, he crushed his one free hand at the back of Issa’s neck into a tight, unrelenting fist. Issa’s startled hiss at the pain gave him only a fleeting moment of satisfaction before he growled, “
You-”
"Shhhh," Issavan whispered, his lips still damp and close enough to Kaleth's that he felt the brush of it against his own, and other than his minor wince, Issavan seemed unperturbed by Kaleth's death grip on the nape of his neck. "You'll sleep in a moment…"
"You…" Kaleth blinked off his dizziness, struggling against inevitable, impending unconsciousness; he didn't
want to sleep. Issavan had poisoned him. Somehow, Issavan had put something on his lips without letting it effect him, and now, its effects were sinking into Kaleth's body. "You…tricked me…"
"It wasn't hard, sweetheart," Issa drawled, his voice infuriatingly sweet and increasingly far away despite the fact that he was
right there. "You're so…beautifully predictable."
"But I don't…don't…" Kaleth shuddered, again, fighting a losing battle. He felt weak. So weak and tired. No,
exhausted. But his heart was still panicked in his chest, hitting hard and fast up against the walls of it. What could he have used that worked this
fast? "Relax…" Issa's voice had no right to be soothing, but now it was, and when he kissed him again, gently, slowly, Kaleth no longer possessed the strength of will or body to fight it. His eyes dipped, sagging like weighted bags, unimaginably heavy. "I won't hurt you, and it will all be over soon…"
"How can I…trust you…?"
Quicksand. He was sinking, or the world around him was melting, colors blending into each other like wet paint, and consciousness was slipping between his fingers like the grains in an hourglass.
"You can't," were the last two words he heard before everything slipped into blackness.
