Earthbound, p.33
Earthbound, page 33
“What is it, child?”
Emilia coughed, choking on the sob building in her throat. “I’m losing him.”
Venier nodded, mirroring Emilia’s sorrow with glassy eyes of her own. “I know. I felt as much when I talked with him earlier.”
“Can’t you do something?”
“Do what, dear? I cannot release him from his oaths. That is his choice alone.”
Emilia slumped back in the chair. “But you’re an Elder. Can’t you intervene so the Sky doesn’t reclaim her strength?”
Venier folded her hands in her lap with a sigh. “It’s not that easy. When a bond is broken, it is irredeemable. Oaths hold consequence by their very nature. And once broken, the agreed price must be paid.”
An uncomfortable twist stirred in Emilia’s chest. “Price?”
“The cost of any breach for an Avowed is the loss of their Primary Oath.”
“Change the price,” Emilia pressed. “You want to change things, start here.”
Venier met her eyes. “I wish I could, but this is at the very foundation of the Order of the Sky, and it exists for good reason. We cannot have individuals running around with the power of god, answering to no one.”
“Do they not answer to the Sky?”
Venier grimaced. “The simple answer is yes, of course they do. An Avowed who disregards the will of the Sky will be stripped of their power. We cannot measure or control how or when the will of the Sky will intervene.”
“Then don’t intervene!”
“The Order could not rule with such windswept ideals.” The older woman met Emilia’s eyes and gave a gentle smile. “We are getting to the deep matters here, my dear, that Acolytes spend years learning and debating. Answers to this question define if you believe the Sky is a divine being or an elemental force. It doesn’t change the fact that if Tehran breaks his oaths of loyalty to the Order, or the Sky, he will be stripped of his power. It is the mystical cause and effect.”
She couldn’t even imagine the toll such an act would have on Tehran. It had been hard enough on Knox, but he’d chosen it. To have his gift ripped from him would devastate Tehran. Worse than losing his mind?
Emilia’s eyes filled with tears. “Is there truly nothing we can do for him? I thought you said I could help?”
“There is another oath he could lay down,” Venier said gently.
Emilia’s eyes snapped up to meet the older woman’s. “Our bond? I’m trying to help him. I can’t abandon him.”
“It’s the root of his deepest conflict. You hold his loyalty rather than the Order.”
A cold numbness radiated through Emilia’s limbs.
“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘The power comes in the taking?’”
Emilia shook her head.
“It’s in reference to the oaths. The power they hold is in the very act of taking the oath. They give power because they are power. Power over ourselves. Over others. They are the refinement of will and purpose. The Sky honours such intent with strength in Overseers, but oaths impact the rest of us as well. In exchanging vows with Tehran, you were bonded with him—thus the term. It’s an incredible thing. Surely you felt it working on you, drawing you together as partners.”
Emilia didn’t need to answer. They both knew the truth of it.
Venier paused and leaned forward. “But in Tehran’s case, he has equally powerful bonds pulling him in different directions. For instance, his desire to care for you above all others could conflict with his directive to protect the Reaches.”
“I would never expect him to sacrifice the good of others for me,” she protested.
“I’m sure he knows that. The fact he has carried two oaths for as long as he has demonstrates an incredible amount of trust between the two of you. But the fact remains: something has shifted, and it’s pulling at the fabric of his mind.”
Emilia remembered the moment she felt things change between them. She’d shared about copying the Book of Oaths. Of her conversation with Elder Venier. Could Dareous have said something? She swallowed back the sour feeling at the back of her throat. No. This is on me, alone.
“I have to release him?”
Venier’s velvet wrinkles deepened. “If he is to have any chance of making it through this, I am afraid so. And I warn you, it may already be too late.”
A shiver ran through Emilia’s body, every cell in protest. The void that had opened when she lost Knox threatened to swallow her again. Tehran had rescued her from the darkness, and now for his sake, she needed to face it on her own. She took a shuddering breath.
“How is it done?”
Venier reached across the table, grasping her hand. “You really are your mother’s daughter. So strong.”
Emilia bit her lip to keep the arguments from spilling out. Desperation is not strength. “How?”
“It is the same as with all oaths: intent. The words are less important than the intent you speak them with. Think of the bond you share and the words you both first spoke.”
The image of Tehran kneeling before her that first night out of Rikken filled her mind. He had been filled with tormented desperation; to protect her, to prevent her from enduring more pain. Precisely as she wanted to do now for him.
“You speak the words that come, relinquishing the bond.”
“That’s it? Just words?”
“Words and intent,” Venier said. “The most common and profound piece of magic this world holds.” She straightened. “It will be best if he relinquishes his oaths to you as well, but a Bonding Oath releases both sides when broken by either individual.”
Emilia nodded mutely and stood to leave.
“I wouldn’t wait, Emilia. We have much to face in the coming days, and we will need Tehran whole.”
Emilia dipped her head in acknowledgement and left. The stars burned brightly as she crossed the camp once again. The once crescent moons narrowed to thin lines of light with the season. Charyls nodded as she passed but said nothing more.
Before she pulled the flap to their tent, she could hear Tehran’s voice coming from within. It was worn and rough as if pleading for death.
She knelt on the floor next to him. “Tehran, wake up.” She put a hand on his chest and felt his breathing change as she gently shook him.
He sat up with a start. “What is it?” He tried to stand but she kept her hand against his sternum.
“We need to talk.”
He let out a breath and reached for the portable light.
“Don’t,” she said into the darkness. She summoned the memory of when they exchanged oaths to mind and as she focused the words came, exactly as Venier promised.
“Em?”
“Tehran, I release you before the Sky from your bond and obligation to me. I withdraw my devotion and ask the Sky to undo what has been knit together.”
His ragged groan shocked her. “Em, please don’t.” He doubled over, pressing his head into his hands.
She stuttered but pressed on. “Tehran, I reject your covering from both Earth and Sky. Return to your first oaths. You are your own once again.”
If a trickle of warmth had initially bound them, barbs of ice lanced through her chest with her final words.
“Why?” he croaked.
“I will not let you be broken for me. You must renounce your bond.” She held back a sob.
“Never.”
Even as he said the word, his grip on her hand loosened and he collapsed sideways into her, unconscious.
“Tehran!” she screamed, shaking him.
He didn’t flinch. She laid him back and pressed an ear to his chest. “Tehran. Wake up.” His heart beat but at an exaggeratedly slow rate.
“Ms. Emilia?” Charyls called from outside the tent. “Is everything okay?”
“Get Elder Venier, now!”
She heard his footsteps retreat and the camp stirring, no doubt woken by her scream.
Emilia had never wished she had followed in her mother’s footsteps as a healer as much as in this moment. “Come on, remember.”
She put the tips of her fingers to his lips. Is he breathing? After what felt like an extended lifetime, she felt the barest whisper of breath move past them. Poison? Injury? She dismissed the thoughts quickly; she knew what had happened.
His mind had fractured under the strain.
Never, he had said.
“Let go, Tehran, please let go,” she pleaded and put her forehead to his. “Please. It’s not worth this.”
Venier’s soft gasp announced her presence as Charyls shone a light into the tent.
“I did what you said,” the words spilled from Emilia in a rush, “and then he collapsed.”
“Oh, no.” Venier came and knelt next to Emilia, touching Tehran’s forehead with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry, dear. I had no idea he was at this point. He carried the strain so well,” she muttered.
“What does that mean?”
“He must have been riding the edge of collapse for a while now. He’s gone.”
Emilia scowled. “He’s not. He’s right here. We can wake him.”
Venier turned to Charyls and stood. “Bring the medic; alert Hadin and Marel.”
“Elder, what do you mean?” Emilia almost shouted.
“He won’t wake, dearest. I’ve seen this before. He made his choice. He would rather break than abandon his oaths. Poor soul.”
“He was just talking to me! We need to help him,” Emilia said. She clenched her fists at her sides and Venier raised a delicate eyebrow in response.
“The best we can do is make sure he is comfortable. He is gone.”
Eye of the Storm
Tehran
Tehran looked around, trying to place where he was. The sun shone through the mist of an autumn morning, the cool air prickling at his skin. He stood on a rocky precipice overlooking a valley. Rikken lay below tucked into the trees, ripe fields of bronze grain sitting undisturbed, awaiting harvest.
He glanced down the rock face, confused. The geography was similar, but this outcropping was at least double its normal elevation.
“I wouldn’t jump,” a familiar voice teased.
Tehran froze.
“Last time you tried you managed to get hung up in that tree. Remember?” the voice chuckled.
He spun, knowing exactly who he would see. “Knox.”
Knox stood before him, looking much the same as the last time they were together, except his hair had grown out and he’d shaved away his beard. The half-smirk he wore was identical.
“How are you here? You’re,” his voice caught, “dead.”
Knox snorted and gave Tehran a friendly shove. “I’m not dead.”
Tehran stared at his friend and rubbed his shoulder where Knox had touched him. I felt that.
Of course you did, Knox answered within his mind.
Tehran stumbled back in surprise. “What’s happening?”
His head ached as memories tried to surface all at once: his oath to Dareous, days of travelling, conversations with Venier and Emilia. His pulse pounded in his ears, and he sat heavily on the rock, overwhelmed by the sensation. Worst of all were Emilia’s whispered words echoing on repeat. I release you before the Sky.
A fresh wound lay in his soul where she’d torn herself away. He dropped his head into his hands. “I need to fix this.”
“There is nothing for you to fix,” Knox said, as he sat next to him on the hard stone.
“Of course there is. I’ve left Emilia alone.” He paused, realizing who he was speaking to. Guilt crashed into his chest like a lead hammer. “Knox—I—”
Knox clapped him on the shoulder again. “That’s a conversation for another time.” He smiled at Tehran like the statement was an inside joke.
Another time?
Knox turned serious and his subdued voice spoke directly into Tehran’s thoughts. He will understand.
“Stop that,” Tehran growled. “I don’t need you in my head.”
“You’re actually in mine,” Knox said with a shrug.
“You aren’t Knox, are you?” He gauged the Knox lookalike with a critical eye. In every detail he looked like his friend, but something was off. Not the least of which was Knox’s calm acceptance of his relationship with Emilia. Knox would rip me to shreds.
“He would, but for now, I’m close enough,” Knox said.
“I’m dead?” Tehran asked.
Knox let out a full-bellied laugh. “You’re not getting out of this that easily.”
“Getting out of what?”
Knox bent and picked up a small twig and started breaking off small pieces and tossing them into the updraft at the cliff edge. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Tehran watched the small pieces of bark lift into the air. “I hate riddles.”
Knox smiled. “I know.”
Tehran cast a begrudging smile at the ribbing. The cool air hit his lungs and a cloud of breath hung before him. “This all feels real.”
Knox gave him an incredulous look. “Of course it’s real. When have thoughts been anything other than real?”
Tehran ran his hand through his hair. “My mind is fractured though, isn’t it? I failed to keep my oaths.”
Knox gestured out over the valley. “Does this look broken to you?”
The landscape stood in stunning clarity. The ridges of the surrounding mountains in sharp relief from the blue of the sky, deepening in colour as the sun continued to gain altitude.
“No,” he said carefully. “But something is off.”
Knox nodded. “You are dancing along the line of what’s possible.”
“I’m trapped here?”
“I don’t see any chains.”
“You know what I mean,” he growled, frustration growing. If he was trapped within his own mind, who knew what could be happening in the real world while he lay helpless? Or what Emilia is facing.
“What are you going to do about it?”
The unfulfilled oaths sprang forward from the shadows of his mind, a painful barb. He rubbed his forehead. The sunlight overhead flickered, like there was a short in its celestial circuit. He cast a concerned look skyward.
“That is worrisome,” Knox said. “It’s time to choose what you are going to hold on to and what you are going to let go.”
“I won’t lay down my oaths to the Sky or to Emilia,” he said as he pushed himself to standing. If he was about to meet his end he wanted to be on his feet. “If I break, I break.”
“Foolish,” Knox scoffed.
“Knox would know I would never betray an oath I took.”
“Maybe that is exactly why he is here.”
Tehran stopped and looked at the figment of his friend.
“You can choose what matters,” he said.
Could he really choose a new path forward? Echoes of Emilia’s voice filtered into his mind. “Let go,” it whispered. The words hit him as if they were physical blows. The sun flickered again, and the cast of the light changed its quality, turning grey. A cold wind picked up and pulled at him. Emilia’s voice in the wind begged him to let go. He wouldn’t, but neither could he lay aside his oaths to the Order and by extension to Dareous. Each held a piece of his soul.
Knox stood in the building storm, untouched by the elements. He held Tehran with his silver gaze, piercing him with its intensity. “You have to choose.”
“I made this choice when I took my oaths,” he shouted over the wind. The storm intensified and pelting rain soaked the stone, making it slippery. He crouched to keep his feet beneath him and held his arm up against the droplets whipping into his eyes.
“Oaths are sacred,” Knox agreed, his voice cutting through the noise of the storm like a pure tone within his mind. “As is the intent they are spoken from. They were never meant to rob you of choice, but to clarify what is important, what is sacred. Oaths are vehicles to direct passion.”
Emilia’s voice carried in the wind, wordless, heavy with the ache of loss. For him?
There is a way to honour your oaths. Knox’s voice spoke softly within his mind.
Tehran locked eyes with his friend, struck by the words. Knox had walked this road before him. He had laid down his oaths to the Order; accepting weakness and ridicule in return and had lived to honour the vows that mattered. Those to the Sky. To Emilia.
A small smile pulled at Knox’s mouth as understanding blossomed in Tehran’s mind. There was a cost in this choice, but it wasn’t his integrity.
“I renounce my oath.” He yelled into the darkened sky and the howling storm. The wind stole his words even as he spoke them and poured his intent into each syllable.
As the last word dropped from his lips, the wind stilled and the sky cleared. The pain pressing in at his temples vanished. The sun above him regained its vibrancy and he tipped his chin to the warmth and sucked in a long breath. Knox stepped up to his side and put a hand on his shoulder. “Cutting it a little close there, my friend?”
Tehran chuckled as he looked around. A twill dipped and spun in the air over their heads, singing her morning song. “You know me. I like to push the limits.”
“I do,” Knox said with a knowing look. “Start trusting yourself, will you?”
Knox’s mouth was still moving, but his words sounded as if they were across a great distance, the world spun and a moment later Tehran found himself alone and in the dark.
It took a moment for Tehran to comprehend the darkness was self-imposed. After the vivid dreamscape, the blackness behind his closed eyes was jarring. Engine vibration moved through the bed beneath him and into his fingertips. He opened his eyes and blinked as they adjusted to the dim cabin. He was on a medical cot in one of the caravan cars, strapped in securely.
He pulled at his strength and pushed out at the straps—nothing. No power met him. The Sky had accepted his renunciation. It didn’t sting as he thought it would, not nearly as sharp as the realization that Knox was still gone. It had been so natural to be talking with him once again.
It wasn’t him—
He squeezed his eyes shut as a shiver ran through him at the immensity of all that had happened.
After a few moments, he opened his eyes and scanned the narrow alcove for a way to release himself from the straps. If he remembered correctly there were two such cot-like compartments in this vehicle. A transparent partition separated his alcove from the main cabin but with no way to release his arms he could not lower it.
