Sareb awoke to a pounding headache, which was joined a moment later by a dull ache in his chest, as he remembered the events of the night before. Teshem. Gone. The thought hurt so much it was like a physical pain. He curled up against it, and before he knew it he was weeping, sobs wracking his body, his eyes and nose streaming.
Stop, one part of him said. Don't let them see you like this. But another part, an overwhelming part, didn't care, didn't know anything but grief that seemed as wide as the sky and as deep as the rock.
When Sareb's sobs finally faded, Frostarrow spoke beside him.
"Mage," he said softly. "What has happened?"
Go away, he thought, but he still could not speak. By the time that he could, something had occurred to him.
"Centarchos," he began, and stopped, not liking how his voice was quavering. When he felt more certain of his voice he went on. "What happens to a beacon rock if someone dies? Does it stop working?"
Frostarrow caught his breath. "I don't think so," he finally said. "I've heard that it goes cold."
"Goes—cold?" the mage repeated in a shaky voice. "What if it's not cold, but just—not working?"
"I think that means that the link has been broken."
"H-how does that happen?" The mage, huddled in his cape-wrap, shivered as though cold, and Kuya felt the waves of barely suppressed distress going through him.
"I think it's because the bond between the two people was broken," Kuya said as gently as he could.
The mage gave a stifled moan and curled up even tighter, pain radiating off him in intense waves. Kuya longed to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he knew the mage would take it wrong. He didn't know what he could say or do, without tipping the mage into anger. So he just crouched there by his side. If the mage needed anything more, he would be there.
Selengged watched them from beside the remains of the campfire, also not speaking. At last she walked over to her brother and laid her hand on his shoulder. "We should get going."
Kuya nodded, but didn't get up. The mage lay still, as though asleep. Kuya looked up at his sister, raised his eyebrows and gestured at the mage.
Selengged shrugged.
Kuya looked down again, at the thin form tightly curled in the red capewrap. All his life, people had left him alone or driven him out to fend for himself.
"I will wait with him," Kuya said. "It will be harder, but—"
"Don't bother," the mage said in a thick voice. "I'll come with you."
He did it more to escape Frostarrow's pity than anything else. The thought of Frostarrow sitting there over him interminably was suffocating. He would get up. He would go with them to Dalaïda.
And then?
He couldn't think beyond that. A life without Teshem was like a world without sunrise. What did one do when it was night forever, endlessly dark?
He thought of the flowers in his pack. They would banish the night, banish everything.
But Frostarrow was waiting for him.
He dragged himself to his feet. In his night, he would walk, blindly.
***
Even when they took to the air, Sareb's personal darkness did not lift. Flying normally made him feel free and easy, but this time he felt weighed down, as though he hadn't left the earth behind. As they flew over the mountains that bordered the desert, with the golden sands stretching away to the right, and ranks and ranks of mountains, dark with pines, to their left, Sareb regarded them dully. The ache of leaving the desert hardly registered in his much deeper grief.
Once the causeway of the High Road became visible, a pale ribbon wending through the dark forest, they landed and the two Gladiari changed form and dressed. They would try to enter the Gladiari quarter of Dalaïda as inconspicuously as possible, and leave again as soon as they had seen the Sibyl. Selengged's face was stony, but Kuya could sense the churning within her. If anyone noticed that she didn't have her soulsword...
"I'm sure no one will look twice," he said, willing down his own unease.
"The Sibyl will know."
He gazed into her eyes, where fear glinted among the obsidian, a faint glimmer few others would have noticed. We don't have to go, he would have said if he'd thought she would listen. We could just go home.
Her gaze and her mind firmed, and he knew what she was thinking. We do have to go. I can't go home unless I do this.
He nodded. He had followed her into battle so many times; what was one more? Even if it truly felt like this could be the final one.
Selengged turned to consider the mage, who stood with his back turned, shoulders slumped, and Kuya had an idea.
"The mage can go buy us supplies," he said, as nonchalantly as possible, drawing some coins out of the pouch at his belt.
He half expected an indignant outburst at this reminder that the mage was barred from the Gladiari part of the city, but the mage took the coins without a word, his gaze downcast. Too lost in grief to be angry, Kuya thought.
Selengged tugged at his sleeve. "How do you know he won't run off with the money?"
"I don't. But how do you teach someone to trust again?"
Selengged raised her eyebrows. "Well, how?"
"By trusting him."
Selengged shrugged. "Well, it's your money, brother."
They hid the saddlepacks and then set off on foot through the forest. It was the first time Sareb had been completely surrounded by greenery that stretched for leagues in all directions. The tall trees covered in spindly dark needles hid most of the sky, and wherever he turned were more tree trunks, stretching on and on as far as the eye could see. Undergrowth filled most of the space between the trees, and save for some boulders and craggy spots, the ground was covered in a slippery layer of dried tree needles. The thought that someone or something could easily creep up on them drew him slightly out of his grief, and he followed the two Gladiari warily, looking around and feeling as though the whole forest were watching them.
***
"Well, that was cute of you of this morning, trying to comfort the little mage."
Selengged and Kuya were making their way through the woods about a horselength ahead of the mage, who was wrapped in his own thoughts anyway, and Selengged spoke in Aoki.
Kuya's face warmed, surprisingly. There was nothing wrong with trying to comfort someone in distress, was there? "Cute?" he said with a little forced chuckle. "I was just trying to be friendly."
"Seems a little more than just friendly to me," Selengged said with a mischievous grin.
"It's not like that," Kuya insisted, his cheeks growing hot now. "I just...feel for him, because he's suffering so much."
"Yes, you feel very...strongly...for him." Selengged made an obscene gesture.
Kuya laughed in spite of his embarrassment. "No, it's not like that!" The thought brought up memories, though, and an old ache flared. "I can't think of things like that," he said quietly.
