The phantom flame, p.22
The Phantom Flame, page 22
Kellan flopped onto the bed with little ceremony, landing face first into the pillows with a small grunt. Cassian felt the corners of his mouth lift, but he didn’t speak. It would be enough, he decided, to simply be near Kellan during this trip. It would have to be.
He let sleep overtake him once more, his eyelids growing heavy as he listened to the soft sounds of Kellan preparing for bed.
It was enough, he repeated to himself. It was enough. But he wasn’t convinced.
Kellan was gone by the time he woke the next morning, his bed left sloppy and unmade. It was good to see he hadn’t changed in the years Cassian had been gone. Cassian’s heart warmed at the thought as he slowly rolled out of bed.
Downstairs, the dining room of the inn was bustling. He spotted Vaida and Liv at a table together, chatting amicably and sipping on large mugs of steaming coffee.
He began making his way to them, slipping through the crowded space with murmured apologies. But when he was halfway to them, Kellan joined their table. Vaida said something to him, and a bright smile spread across his face.
It nearly knocked Cassian over to see it—their entire journey, he hadn’t seen Kellan smile like that once. Sure, he’d cracked bitter smiles, ones without humor or happiness. But none like this, full of joy and warmth.
Kellan’s brown eyes met Cassian’s across the dining room, and the smile immediately disappeared. Cassian deflated.
At least you were thorough, Zal’s voice echoed in his head as he continued moving toward the table, disappointment beating through his veins.
Oh, you’re still alive, Cassian shot back. I hadn’t heard from you for a while, so I assumed they’d replaced you.
My my, someone’s in a bad mood today, ze replied. Who pissed in your oatmeal?
Shut it, Cassian said lamely, setting his breakfast down on the table with a thud. I don’t need your sass if you have nothing important to say.
Touchy. Ze chuckled. I thought you’d be interested to know that I tried asking some friends about your riddle.
It’s not like they’ll know anything, Cassian said. Liv raised an eyebrow at him, but he shook his head. She knew, like Rosalie, when Cassian was communicating with Zal.
You’re not wrong, ze replied.
So how is that helpful?
It means the story that woman told you was right, and the humans did their jobs. Just thought you should know.
Cassian sighed, cutting off the connection as he turned his gaze back to Liv. “Sorry. Zal was…chatty this morning.”
Kellan didn’t spare him another glance, instead focusing on the plate of food heaped high before him. But Vaida raised an eyebrow at him.
“Who is Zal?” she said, frowning.
Kellan must not have told her the story he’d shared that night in Rivenstorm. He supposed it made sense that Kellan wouldn’t want to talk about it.
He filled Vaida in on the barest of details, explaining the state of his eye and his pact with Zal. She stayed silent the whole time, her lips turned down in a frown. She didn’t ask questions when he was done, apparently content to ponder his situation. Her silence was off-putting, but he couldn’t force her to ask questions, not when she so obviously wasn’t interested.
But the itch in his mind was back, pulling him incessantly toward her. She was magnetic to him, even more so now that she’d listened to his story. He didn’t understand what it was, why it kept happening, or why her. But he struggled to ignore it, struggled to make sense of what he was feeling.
Liv had the decency to change the subject after a long pause. “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine,” he replied.
A coffee mug appeared in front of him. He glanced up to see Vaida, her expression still contemplative. He wasn’t sure how to react, so he just nodded his thanks.
“You looked like you needed it,” she said, a hint of a smirk finally curving her lips upward. “Kellan snores, so I bet you didn’t sleep that well last night.”
Kellan huffed. “I don’t snore.”
“You do,” she responded without glancing at him. Cassian returned her smile and accepted the mug. The scent of the coffee was enough to make his shoulders relax.
“He wasn’t so bad,” Cassian said as he sipped.
Vaida chuckled while Kellan made an indignant noise. Liv cleared her throat, and they looked at her. Cassian noted the stern set of Liv’s chin and knew she was uncomfortable.
“Vaida and I were just discussing how we should go about finding some clues for this first piece of the riddle,” she said, glancing once at the woman seated next to her.
Vaida nodded. “We were thinking it might not be a bad idea to visit some of the tourist spots, see if any of the locals working there know some old legends. It’s usually easier to find that sort of stuff in places targeted toward tourists.”
He’d come to a similar plan last night. “That’s what I was thinking as well. Why don’t we split into teams and each grab a handful of places?”
Kellan nodded. “Vaida and I can take one half, you and Liv can take the other.”
Liv shook her head. “No can do, buddy. Vaida and I have already picked a few. You and Cassian can check these.” She slid a guidebook across the table, open to a page covered in highlights and sticky notes.
Kellan’s jaw tightened, but Vaida spoke before he had the chance to argue. “There’s a temple to Avani here, and the Alderburn Archives here,” she said, pointing to two red-circled spots on the map in the book. “I don’t really know what sort of information the temple would have, but it can’t hurt to check it out. The Archives have maps; they might have something we can’t find anywhere else.”
Cassian watched Kellan’s face as she pointed out the landmarks, paying close attention to his jaw that never relaxed. He knew Vaida and Liv were pushing them. He knew Vaida wouldn’t push too far, either. But he struggled with understanding where that line was and how she knew just how far to push.
But she gambled and won. Kellan finally relaxed, the hard set of his shoulders sinking down as he snatched the guidebook from the table.
“Come on,” he said, standing. He didn’t look at Cassian.
He stood as well. Vaida shrugged and gave a well-meaning headshake before he followed Kellan out of the inn and into the winter sun.
29
KELLAN
Aldernburn
24th of Dawn Moon
How dare she. Kellan’s frustration was nearly boiling over as he stomped out of the inn, Cassian at his heels. He’d known Vaida and Liv wouldn’t put up with his suggestion, but putting him with Cassian?
They were just trying to tease him, weren’t they? The frustration boiled purplish pink in his chest as the sun blinded him off the fresh snow on the streets.
And they were supposed to visit, what, a temple and some dreary old archive building? What kind of tourist attractions were those? He was going to give Vaida one hell of a lecture when they returned that evening.
Cassian followed him, quiet and reserved as Kellan stalked toward the station for trolleys that criss-crossed through town. It was faster than walking, considering the Archives were on the other side of the city.
He knew their predicament wasn’t Cassian’s fault—he knew that. But a little voice in his head screamed at him that Cassian was the reason, anyway. All this hurt, all this anger from the last four years was all his fault.
The station was busy but not overcrowded. The trolleys came every few minutes, their red and dark green exteriors blending in with the natural landscape of Alderburn. They looked old-fashioned but ran on a mag-lev system that Kellan knew they must have retrofitted the cars for. That magnetic suspension made them incredibly quiet; he didn’t even hear when a trolley departed just feet away.
“Kellan?” Cassian said, barely loud enough to be heard over the surrounding buzz.
Kellan looked at him but said nothing. He waited, arms crossed, for Cassian to say whatever was on his mind.
Cassian pressed his lips together. “I know you must be…frustrated,” he began, picking through the words that left his mouth carefully, as if he was considering each before he said them. “But you have to understand—”
Kellan cut him off, holding up a hand to stop him. “This isn’t the conversation we should have now, Cassian.”
Cassian snapped his mouth shut, looking away in shame. Kellan clenched his jaw but didn’t apologize. He didn’t regret cutting him off. A trolley platform wasn’t the place to do this. If Kellan was being honest with himself, he didn’t want to have the conversation anywhere.
The next trolley arrived minutes later, humming to a halt before them, the gold-trimmed doors opening smoothly for them. Kellan filed in first, checking behind him to make sure Cassian actually followed.
The Alderburn Archives were in an old building on the edge of the city, a backdrop of the Ensen Mountains painting a picturesque scene as they stepped off the trolley. Alderburn’s proximity to the border with Uswye meant the town was the first stop on many long journeys. Interesting artifacts and stories had passed through this town, and they kept many of them at the Archives.
The building was well maintained, with a beautifully manicured lawn currently covered in a thin layer of snow. The path toward the entrance was made of a brown stone laced with white and silver, sharply maintained and edged with rock. The Archives themselves were built of the same brown stone as the walkway, with wide arched windows and gold muntins holding the massive glass panels in place.
Kellan went inside first, head swiveling to find an information desk or place to start their search. Cassian turned down a hallway and disappeared. Kellan didn’t bother following.
The atrium was old, old enough that the scuff marks in the dark hemlock flooring looked as if they’d been fixed and re-scuffed a multitude of times. A herringbone pattern ran down the center of the wide hallway. Arches split the dark wall paneling every few feet and led to small alcoves filled to bursting with tomes of every shape, color, and size.
Several light wooden staircases that had obviously been built much later than the rest of the building squeezed themselves in just before the alcoves of books, rendering the atrium an almost maze of books versus stairs. Reaching the books in the alcoves would be a skill better suited to a child than a full-grown man.
He wandered, letting his hands trail over the walls with a feather-light touch. The craftsmanship was beautiful, the cuts so precise there were no discernable gaps between the panels.
Someone cleared their throat behind him, and he started, whirling around to face the source of the noise.
A halfling archivist stood before him, Cassian standing just behind. The archivist had half-moon glasses perched upon their sharp nose and, even though they were several feet shorter than him, somehow managed to look down at Kellan.
“You’re in search of maps, yes?” they asked, voice clear.
Kellan nodded, and the archivist tilted their head to the side. “This way, then.”
Kellan fell into step behind their guide, Cassian moving to create room just behind them. They led them up one of the many staircases in the atrium, striding across the space with confidence.
“It’s jus’ down this hallway, gents,” the archivist said, their voice a pleasant and melodic combination of a Midlset lilt and the bright vowels of an Uswye accent. “Is there a specific map you’ll be searchin’ for today? We’ve got some datin’ as far back as post-Conjunction, so I’m sure you’ll find what you need.”
“A map of the forest, if you’ve got them,” Kellan asked.
The archivist’s eyebrows rose, a twinkle of scholastic interest in their eyes. “Oh, interested in the Bergamot Forest, eh? I’m sure we can dig somethin’ up that will be useful to you.”
They prattled on about the history of the forest as they ascended; the sanctity of the hemlock trees to both Hym and Sol; its effect on the city of Alderburn and the relationship to the Ensen Mountains; and how the pre-Conjunction humans had tales of their own, lost to time, about the history of the forest.
Kellan noticed Cassian trailing slightly behind, a look on his face that seemed almost like confusion. It wasn’t his job to worry about Cassian, but Kellan still glanced behind him every few steps to make sure he was still there.
The second floor was much like the first, its age obvious in the variety of architectural styles and wood colors. The archivist turned down one of the first arches, leading them into a small room with several tables. Tomes the size of an average humanoid’s torso sat upon a solid hemlock table that was stained a deep red and carved with intricate whorls protected by clear resin.
They’d anchored the tomes to the table behind glass, the pages turnable with a device on the front of the glass covering. The archivist led them to one of these tomes, then pointed at the pages displayed beneath the glass.
“This tome contains the first known hand-drawn maps of the trails just on the outskirts of Bergamot Forest,” they began, pressing the back arrow of the mechanism to gently turn the yellowing pages of the book backward. “In the very beginnin’ there were only a few, and they are quite crude.”
The first few maps looked almost comical in their simplicity. The archivist switched to the forward button, pressing several times to advance to a more modern-looking version of the same map they’d just seen.
“Now here’s where it gets interestin’,” they said, using a small ball between the arrow buttons to shine a gentle spotlight inside the glass. “This map is one of the first that ventures beyond the first few miles into the forest. It seems the early travelers never made it much farther than this, as most of the other maps stay in about the same region of forest. We aren’t sure if there were issues or if it’s simply unmappable beyond a certain point.”
Kellan leaned in. “This is the most the forest has ever been mapped? Or just the most for that time period?”
Cassian stood beside him, leaning over the glass with an intensity Kellan didn’t understand. It was as if the drawings entranced him, hypnotized him.
The archivist shook their head. “The most it’s ever been mapped. We know its boundaries, but what lies deep in the forest no one truly knows. Anyone who’s ever gone in never comes back out. You’ve heard the tales, right? Of travelers disappearin’ beyond the thickest trees? Bein’ taken by livin’ shadows?”
Kellan certainly had not heard those stories, but the archivist didn’t seem like they were paying him much mind as they continued.
“It’s probably just made-up tales, things to scare children from venturin’ too far. But still, one must wonder why no one has mapped the depths of the forest in any sort of detail. Of course, more detailed maps of the outskirts exist, but these maps were their predecessors, the ones that made current maps as accurate as they are.”
If the first artifact was somewhere deep in the woods, then a map that only showed the outskirts wouldn’t help them. And if this was all someone had ever mapped—all they’d ever been able to map—how in the world were they supposed to find something in the middle of a forest that was full of terrors?
“So how do people make it through the forest? Isn’t that the way to Balindao?” Cassian asked. The capital of Uswye lay just beyond the forest and the Ensen Mountain range. The fastest way would be through the forest and mountains.
“Ah, you’d think; but alas, no one goes through. Balindao is accessible only through the northern and southern passes. Each run just outside the outskirts of the forest,” the archivist said, flipping the book a few pages further. A new map depicting a simplified version of the Empire and Uswye detailed the safest passages from one city to another.
The northern pass to Uswye ran just south of Kettleguard. The southern pass followed the southernmost boundary of the Empire. Kellan had never realized travel to Uswye overland was so difficult.
Apparently, Cassian had the same thought. “Land travel to Uswye is more challenging than I thought.”
The archivist beamed, apparently excited for the new topic of discussion. “Well, you see, most folks take the northern route. It’s safest, even in winter. As you know, there’s a bit of a natural break in the Ensen range just south and west of Kettleguard. The mountains that actually surround Balindao and back up against Bergamot are some of the tallest in the range.”
Kellan wandered, letting them have their discussion. A map of Northreach, the city that eventually became Spiral City, hung in a glass case on the wall. It was much, much smaller than Spiral City, but something about the shape of the original map reminded him of the sprawling metropolis he’d fled only weeks ago.
Some stupid, nostalgic part of him missed the city he knew. But it had only ever been a cage for him. He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, the old map of Northreach burned into the black in his vision. The stories of living shadows still tickled in the back of his mind, taking shape behind his eyelids in between the ink of the map of Northreach.
“I’ll give you a bit to peruse the maps, then,” the archivist said, loud enough for him to hear. “I’ll be downstairs if you’d like a copy or need assistance with anythin’ else.”
Kellan opened his eyes and turned to face them as they bowed, crossing an arm over their midsection as they did.
“It was a pleasure to discuss maps with you. It’s been a while since anyone has been interested in these.”
Both Kellan and Cassian thanked the archivist as they left, somehow taking all the warmth of the room with them. Kellan’s gaze drifted to Cassian; he looked contemplative, but the look of concern that he’d seen earlier while coming up the stairs was gone.
It wasn’t his place to worry about Cassian like that anymore. He shook his head, his hair flopping with the movement. “Anything strike you as interesting?”
Cassian seemed surprised that Kellan would even talk to him, judging by the way he jumped at the sound of Kellan’s voice. It took him a moment to recover and reply.
“Well,” he began slowly, just like he’d spoken on the trolley platform, “I find it strange that no one has mapped the forest. It’s not like we don’t have the technology these days.”
