Two years ago

  Heemlik held onto his father like a typhoon was whipping past. He could feel the man's heartbeat, and his strong arms around Heemlik had always made him feel safe. Even now. Even after what he'd just said.

  "My son," Abadir said after not enough time. "You restore a measure of honor to yourself with this confession. Deceit leaves your blood."

  Heemlik knew better than to feel relief. Abadir wasn't done talking yet.

  The pelts and heads of steppe hounds, that extinct dog breed unique to the Gaar, of which Bite was the last, decorated the walls of Abadir's inner sanctum. Scrolls were neatly arranged on a shelf near his bed, the complete set of Solarist scripture. That was the copy he had raised Heemlik with, and the copy he read aloud when asked to speak publicly in Adalaant proper.

  The room was making Bite whine a lot more than usual.

  Abadir held Heemlik at arms' length. They were the same height now, though their faces were completely different. In Adalaant, a man had to choose to resemble his father.

  Abadir's face was an ethnic Yaglid orange, with eyes of piercing violet. Not the dull, tainted violet of the Fade, but the same inevitability of it. Yaglids had the most striking eyes in Mekkendor, and Abadir was a man who put everything the suns had gifted him to good use. Whether it was his eyes, his body, or his mind, Abadir would not waste an inch. And when he trained those eyes on you, you knew in your soul that you ought to do the same.

  "Well then, my son," Abadir said with a sympathetic smile, "how should we go about fixing this?"

  The iron grip on Heemlik's shoulders did not match the tone of voice. That was another thing about Abadir that Heemlik hadn't noticed until very recently: lots of things about him didn't seem to match anymore.

  Outside, Sun-Beak crowed. He needed feeding soon.

  "I think," Heemlik said, "that since I deliberately failed to carry out the caskerwol Staving while you were away, I should be made to carry out another right away."

  "And?"

  "And I should fast for ten days, so that I may apologize to the suns whom I have disgraced each day they give me for a week."

  "And?"

  "And I must let the blood I have sullied, and burn it before it drags me down to be burned.”

  "And?"

  Heemlik didn't grit his teeth; he knew better than that. This was a game he and his father had played many, many times. Abadir said that a man who couldn't punish himself couldn't assign punishments to others. The idea was to hit the perfect balance between too harsh and too lenient. Harsh enough to learn a lesson and satisfy his father and the suns, lenient enough to still be of use to the suns and to Adalaant.

  "And I must separate myself from my husband for the week of my fast."

  At this point, Heemlik’s father gave him a hint. With his boot, he nudged the intimidated dog at Heemlik's side. His eyes said it all:

  Harsh enough to learn a lesson. So, what is the lesson?

  Heemlik was not as shocked by the suggestion as he wished he was. He'd refused to carry out that staving ritual altogether so that Jadpers had enough time to get away to find the flesh-witch. Once she was away, he just … didn't do it. It had nothing to do with keeping her alive. The staving ritual was a mass execution, what kept the Fade at bay from consuming Adalaantian lands. After sparing Kaanel, and Jadpers, and delaying the staving ritual for Jadpers’s sake, Heemlik felt an ... unhelpful part of himself growing stronger. Strong enough to stop him from carrying out the staving ritual altogether while his daamvi was away in the homeland, and his daamel was kept silent with mutual secrets.

  But now, a month after Abadir’s return, Timoor had promised to disclose what Heemlik had done to Abadir, and when Heemlik threatened him back with the women Timoor had been taking, Timoor said he already confessed it. Damn that man. The only time he could do what was right was when it got him ahead.

  Why did I do that? Heemlik asked himself as those purple eyes impaled him. I did it because it was reasonable. I did it because I realized, at some level, that I am the same as a scriptomancer and a Prisnidine, and that if they do not deserve to live, I do not deserve to live. And if I do not deserve to live, neither does my father. And if my father does not deserve to live, no one does.

  The helpful part of Heemlik's brain came to what it would call the rescue.

  No. I did it because I am selfish. I did it because sparing her felt good, and I wanted to feel that way again. All this pretense is disgusting. I will banish it. I must banish it.

  "And," Heemlik managed, "I will put down Bite, to dislodge my weakness that delayed the Staving. To elevate myself above the animal."

  Abadir patted him firmly on the shoulders. Heemlik’s armor rang in his ears like it needed maintenance.

  “And then, my son, we will put the Staving back on schedule, together.”

  ***

  Some time passed with the blade resting on Bite's neck. The poor dog was strapped in place, unable to move, unable to open its mouth from the muzzle. A gentle wind blew across the castle courtyard, sending dust over the shivering animal's shorthair coat.

  Heemlik was not shaking. He wasn't. At times like these, Heemlik grew unnaturally still. There was no name for it, because he didn't give it one and people usually only saw him do it once. It was how Heemlik got when the helpful part of him was fighting an uphill battle against … the rest of him.

  The dog had no practical use. Heemlik hadn't trained it to do anything but bark when strangers were near; he'd spent much more time on Sun-Beak and on Kaanel. Bite had been little more than a consolation to Kaanel for not having the son he wanted yet. Bite couldn't even continue his own species, for there were no females left. Abadir and his father before him's avid hunting hobby had eradicated many living things from the Gaar. Now, Heemlik was going to finish the job.

  I will break my hesitation to hurt, Heemlik promised himself. I was raised to rule the Gaar, and to serve the suns. I will not indulge in the luxury of sparing any longer. When Jadpers returns and has connected me to the flesh-witch, I will end her as well.

  If I cannot hurt, I cannot order others to hurt, and if we cannot hurt, we cannot rule this land.

  Then maybe, Kaanel's voice replied in his head, we shouldn't rule this land.

  Heemlik growled. At what or who, he wasn't sure. He remembered the audience around him, of his daamvi, daamel, husband, and honor guard of the Ochre Company. He didn't dare look at any of them. He didn't deserve to meet even his newest recruit's eyes until he broke this hesitation that had emerged within him.

  Minutes passed. Heemlik remained perfectly still.

  Bite gave a pitiful whine.

  Then, in a flash, Heemlik startled himself by raising the heavy broadsword over his head and bringing it down.

  Heemlik had heard many slices in his life. As slices went, this one was sharp, and wet, and uncomfortably small.

  Somehow, Heemlik had missed. He was slipping. He had only cut off Bite’s ear. The dog wailed once, before Heemlik swiftly silenced it with a repeat swing that did not miss.

  Usually, the helpful side of him was loudest just after it succeeded. This time, however, it was gone. It had abandoned him. Heemlik didn't know if it would ever come back.

  He did not raise the sword. His hands were shaking too much.

  ***

  This close to the Fade, the air went from feeling arid to feeling as though you were breathing sand. It was just the right air to feed the beast. The right altitude, too. It was fortunate that breathing air next to the Fade wasn't poisonous. Not noticeably, anyway. There had to be something good about this situation.

  Heemlik stood at the edge of a fifty-foot drop into a pool of mist, which stretched out from the Fade itself. The wall of gas was closer to Heemlik than it was to the foot of the cliff. There was no wind in the Gaar, and nowhere was that sharper than a high place like this, where one hoped for a breeze to cool them from the hard march up.

  A piece of mist struck Heemlik's pauldron. He hardly felt the heat disperse across him harmlessly. Not because he was numb, that would come later, but because he was too busy feeling other things. He wasn't sure what they were, but he'd never felt them in this place before. And Heemlik had been here many, many times.

  This was it; the place where Adalaant earned the Gaar from the Fade. Traded away workers too old, too weak, too injured, too guilty to be kept alive, and in return, the Fade only encroached elsewhere. Through immense faith, and even more immense blood, Adalaant had done the impossible, and negotiated with the Fade.

  Heemlik had been raised to fear nothing but the wrath of the suns, and of his father. The edge of the Fade did not frighten him, nor the sheer drop into it at his feet. But he was starting to think differently about the distinctive black hue the rocks below had obtained from the sheer volume of blood that had run across them year after year, burned into them by gouts of purple mist.

  Heemlik had been here every time baskerwol began or ended. Twice a year, every year, since he turned nine. Eighteen was the year of maturity, when a man became old enough to bring life up in the world. Nine, the age of half-maturity, was when a man became old enough to send life out of the world. Heemlik had personally spilled a substantial amount of the stains he looked down upon now. Heemlik and Kaanel hadn’t brought any life up in the world yet; perhaps that was the cause of the severe imbalance he felt now.

  Jadpers had returned, and been captured. Heemlik had not met her again, and he didn’t intend to until it was too late. Within the hour, to be precise.

  After not enough time alone, and not a moment after he raised his head from the last in a long line of futile prayers, Heemlik felt a hand on his shoulder.

  "My son," Heemlik heard Abadir's voice beside him. "Do you love me, your father who raised you?"

  "Yes, father," Heemlik said automatically, not turning.

  "Do you hate the Prisnidines who cursed us with plagues?"

  "Yes, father."

  "Are you ready to repent, like your daamel has done? I praise you for evading his bad example of late, but will you follow his repentant one?"

  Heemlik did not hesitate. He hardly knew how. "Yes, father."

  A few firm pats on his shoulder, and the sound of boots striding away.

  "Come, Heemlik," called Abadir. "We have the two suns to honor."

  ***

  The person in Heemlik's grip, at the front of the line, was a pitiful young man with no teeth, one eye, and missing most of the hair on his head, to say nothing of the frame supporting it.

  Not pitiful, he reminded himself. Siculate. Wicked. His partner is right behind him, boy. Come now. You know what to do. You know.

  Three lines of shambling, broken refuse ran back down the steps carved into this mountain, all the way down to the base. Heemlik stood at the end of one, Abadir at another, and Timoor at the last. These prisoners condemned to die were called stavers. Ochre Company soldiers stood at regular intervals, moving things along, but once a person was up the steps, there was no running away. A staver's best chance was to cooperate with the ritual at the top to get as much sin out of their bodies before they hit the mist.

  When a person sinned, it contaminated their blood. That blood flowed around their body, bringing the contamination with it everywhere it touched, even the soul. Hence, it became extremely important that a person executed as a form of penance lost as much blood as possible before their soul left their body. So, from when Heemlik was nine, he was trained to rapidly cut across the jugular, carotid, and scalp before pushing a staver's body into the maw of the mist. He also gained the strength and technique to hold up the weight of a drooping human body long enough to allow time to drain. By now, Heemlik could process almost two people per minute, once the invocation prayer was complete.

  Where is Kaanel? Heemlik wondered. He hadn't seen the man since this morning when they started lining everyone up. It was baskerwol, where one sun always rose in place of the other and there was no night. Stavings had to be carried out in view of the suns anyway, but it was important that the same sun never witnessed twice in a row. It was a harsh midday now, so that these people's souls could be received in full view of Nu'um. Daamels like Kaanel and Timoor were usually assigned a column in this ritual alongside their husbands.

  Obvious among the chief reasons for acquiring a husband, his father taught, is to give you companionship, but do not let this obscure another: it gives your superiors options when they are called upon to discipline you.

  My son, my son, relax your passions. Sometimes we punish a laborer or a soldier by removing an eye, or a limb. That doesn't mean they remove their eyes or limbs prematurely, does it? Similarly, don't be afraid to have a husband, even if he may need to be used against you in the future. Punishment must come to all of us, even you and I. Timoor has been most useful and loyal in this regard, and I assure you that you'll want someone like him too one day.

  A suspicion bubbled gently in Heemlik's gut, but he quashed it. There was little he could do about it now. He had enough to worry about. Kaanel could take care of himself.

  Heemlik refused to scan the line for Jadpers. The person immediately before him deserved his full attention. When she arrived in his hands, he knew what to do. He did. He knew.

  I know what to do. I've known what to do all my life. I've never staved with a Prisnidine before, but the point of divine instruction is for situations just like this, when the soul wavers.

  I know what to do. I know.

  Abadir gave the invocation deliberately and evenly, like the life timer it was for the people at the front. As trained, Heemlik kept his gaze fixed on his first subject, who in turn locked eyes with him. Drilled into him was the teaching, "if you treat them like enemies, they will be enemies. If you treat them like the endangered souls they are, and that you're doing them a favor, sooner or later they will act that part too."

  Heemlik gave the man a gentle pat on the shoulder.

  "Are you ready for the last portion of your journey to paradise?" he asked quietly during one of the invocation's mandated pauses. The man did not answer. Heemlik realized the prisoner was looking through him, not at him. Mist struck the man’s shoulder, and he barely flinched.

  These prisoners had known about this ritual long before now. It helped that they were told, upon entering the Gaar and beginning their first day of work gathering fade-talents, to live as though they were already dead. That meant eating and drinking as if they were dead (that is, as little as possible), praying as if they were dead (that is, with last-minute desperation and earnestness), and most of all, working as if they were dead (that is, as if exhaustion was nothing more than a word).

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Heemlik was accustomed to all sorts of expressions here. He'd seen this queue many times. Rage, defeat, sometimes even relief. Not everyone wanted to return to the outside world and make something out of whatever the Gaar hadn't taken from them.

  In this man and wife's eyes, Heemlik saw his least favorite reflection an iris could contain: nothing.

  The invocation continued. The invocation ended.

  That very useful part of Heemlik kicked in. The part of him that knew. It was shakier now. It felt like holding a hammer after seeing the head wobble on the end. Would it stay on? And if it didn't, where would it fly?

  Soon, his uniform was ruined with red.

  ***

  Heemlik knew how to work. It was an important trait of any worthwhile authority figure. One of the many things Heemlik learned from his father was the enforcement of Deel'darim, or "say as done" in naruglid. To order people to work in a field, you had to work in a field yourself first. To order people to ride to battle in your name, you had to ride into battle in someone else’s name first. A leader who cannot do, cannot say. The same applied to any high office in the kingdom, and that meant Heemlik knew how to do the dreary work of harvesting fade-talents at the edge of the mist. Beneath their armor, he and his father both had a small collection of purple-brown scars from those childhood lessons.

  Heemlik was therefore capable of the mechanical, monotonous, thoughtless work that was Staving. Bring forward, slice here, slice there, wait a moment for bleeding, unchain, and throw. Some of the sinners would buckle and fight, but Heemlik was large, armed, and knew what he was doing. It would be like resisting the Everwhite Sea once it had you in its mad tidal grip. There were Ochre soldiers stationed at the edges of the landing in case someone broke free and tried to run, but Heemlik hadn't needed them in years.

  With any luck, she'll pass through without me noticing, he told himself. Like a fool. Of course he'd notice a Prisnidine in his hands. He'd need to; her partly wooden flesh required different slicing points and a lot more force to achieve the proper effect.

  Heemlik winced as he heard his last condemned worker's body hit the cliffside on the way down, before the distinctive splash of mist swallowing something large. That wasn't a good sign; if Heemlik was wincing now, what else would stop him?

  Putting down Bite was supposed to re-enthrone the useful part of Heemlik's psyche. Instead, it had shattered it. Heemlik had never shaken or cringed and flinched so much in his life before now. How would he ever replace Abadir when the man grew old and frail, and the blood was drained from his body?

  "Wait! That won't work!"

  The sacrificing paused, and Heemlik turned to look at the front of his father's queue. The man had no scars, not even Fade burn marks. His hair was patchy, but his eyes were clear and his nose on straight. He stood out from the rest of the refuse. Why was he being sent to die?

  "Go on," Abadir said, lowering his knife. Everyone except more dazed workers were watching now.

  "I, er … " the man stuttered. Unlike Abadir, he did not grow larger and more imposing with so many eyes on him. He shrunk. Abadir sighed and raised the knife once more. The man finally forced it out:

  "I'm a vampire!"

  Instantly, everyone with a weapon drew it, and a few of the more lucid sacrifices backed away in their chain lines. Abadir, however, slowly lowered his blade. Heemlik saw something he wasn't used to seeing in those sharp purple eyes: surprise.

  No, he realized. Not surprise. Something else. Something hot.

  "I-I can't control my regeneration yet," the man stammered. "All I ask, sir, is that you give me more time to bleed before throwing me over, is all. I-I gladly go! I promise on the light of the suns, in view of Nu’um!"

  The silence was just long enough for Heemlik to realize what he was seeing in those irises.

  He's insulted. Disgusted.

  Abadir usually didn't show that in his expression. In Heemlik's experience, whether he was dealing with a disobedient son, an unfaithful husband, or a lazy worker, his eyes contained disappointment. This was different.

  Without a word, Abadir gripped the man's throat and launched him forward. The vampire screamed the whole way down, carrying all of his blood and all of his sin with him into the Fade. Abadir watched him fall the entire way down, like a man examining the twitching corpse of a spider to make sure it doesn't run away. Vampires couldn't fly, but Abadir didn't look like someone who was taking chances. The base of the cliff stretched into the Fade, so unless the man was an excellent climber even after that fall, he’d never get back out of the mists before they dissolved him.

  Heemlik was appalled. Sending people to the Suns for judgment was one thing, but this was forcing them to take all their sins with them. It made his own blood curdle.

  "Get on with it," Abadir barked, already unchaining the next worker.

  And stop shaking, his eyes added before Heemlik looked away.

  It was downhill from there. Heemlik started messing up the procedure, which only caused more suffering. This wasn't right. This couldn't be right. Hadn't Kaanel said that –

  And there he was. Jadpers, in the queue leading to Abadir's knife. And at the same position in Heemlik's queue, was Kaanel.

  The unhelpful side within Heemlik could not have asked for a better opportunity to attack. It was like a poison, making his blood run cold, making him doubt himself like a heart considering giving up on pumping blood.

  Poison, the unhelpful side replied in Kaanel’s voice, or medicine?

  The two were each chained and dressed in rags like everyone else, though their bodies were in significantly better condition. Kaanel only looked slightly beaten, but Jadpers was a bruised-up mess. It was hard to look at, but nowhere near as difficult as meeting Kaanel’s wide-eyed gaze. It was too much like looking into Bite’s eyes.

  Which was precisely the point. On top of extinctioning the wolves of the Gaar, Heemlik would extinction scriptomancers here as well. He would put down his husband like a dog.

  Harsh enough to learn the lesson.

  It was then that Heemlik realized his father was waiting for him to finish each and every kill before moving on. He was making sure Kaanel would be in his grip at the same time Heemlik pulled Jadpers forward. This was the test. He couldn’t know that Kaanel was even a scriptomancer. But he didn’t need to. This was the "use" Kaanel was going to serve.

  After a minute, Kaanel’s eyes changed. The only thing keeping Heemlik from freezing up was the reassuring look on his husband's face. The same one Kaanel gave him before Heemlik caved to any of his ideas. Sparing Jadpers, skipping the Staving, all of it.

  And how had all of that ended? Why was the same reassurance in the same face so effective?

  Whatever part of Heemlik made him heed Kaanel's advice, it was locked in combat with the part that had put down Bite. Though they dueled with rapiers and danced on razor’s edges, much blood was drawn. Heemlik felt himself hemorrhaging like his victims as he worked his way toward his own bound spouse. How was it possible for the cutting to be so slow, and yet so fast at the same time?

  The time came. Heemlik discarded a worker, and hauled his husband forward. Kaanel’s red-rimmed eyes were now inches from Heemlik’s. Heemlik found himself wishing he could kiss the man one last time.

  We never even had the son he wanted.

  Jadpers's dried-out green eyes also fixed on Heemlik as Abadir pulled her forward. Her body swayed in his grip. Heemlik’s gaze alternated between the two. The only thing he glimpsed in Abadir’s eyes was a cold certainty that Heemlik would do as he always had: his duty.

  Just do what Kaanel would do, part of Heemlik pleaded. It may not have turned out well in the end, but at least it improved things at the time. It was an escape from something I didn't know I needed to flee.

  Now I know.

  Abadir's eyes were trained on him. Heemlik forced himself to look back.

  He stopped shaking.

  Time passed. Heemlik didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing. The unhelpful part was in control now. It thrived on his indecision. It thrived until, without his realizing it, it graduated from being part of him, to being who he was. Now, out of decision rather than indecision, Heemlik had stopped shaking. And he kept doing nothing.

  Because nothing was something.

  Presently, Abadir sighed, changed the grip of his knife, forced Jadper’s head forward, and thrust upward for the jugular.

  Heemlik all but threw Kaanel aside and dashed toward his father with a scream, but was knocked back by a shockwave of azure light. The sound of a knife breaking rang through the air. Everyone collapsed to the ground. When Heemlik shot back up to his feet, Kaanel and Jadpers had pinned his father to the ground in the pandemonium.

  Heemlik's eyes widened, reflecting blue in the whites. Jadpers was glowing. An engram had burst through her shirt, a symbol of a cracked shield hovering like hair blown in the wind. A blue stripe ran across her wooden neck like a scratch in armor.

  Sometimes Heemlik forgot how powerful Kaanel's body was; most of his thoughts for the man were for his softer side. But Kaanel hadn't gotten into the Eerind Honor Guard by being weak and scrawny. He held Abadir to the ground with a hand pushing his face down in the blood, a knife raised for the back of his neck.

  Heemlik focused on his husband. He couldn’t bear looking at the expression on his father’s face any more than he could bear directly gazing at a sun. In his imagination, Abadir’s face had the image of a wrathful god, digesting betrayal in real time. The betrayal of an engram getting past his guards, and the betrayal of his son and son-in-law that chose a Prisnidine over him.

  "Stay back!" Kaanel shouted. The other honor guards froze in place. A few behind him inched closer, but Heemlik raised a hand warningly.

  The Ochre Company had dealt with mages before; they were one of the most important quarries. Moon-shards were rare in the Gaar. Sometimes workers found them before their overseers did. The thing about scriptomancers was that you could never predict which spells they'd learned, or how powerful the shard they found was. Kaanel wasn't holding his shard, and must not have brought it here, or it would have been confiscated, but there was no telling what other engrams he'd hidden under his shirt.

  Kaanel forced Abadir up to his knees, knife to his throat. He whispered something in the man's ear, then pulled him the rest of the way to his feet.

  "We," Kaanel said, shooting glances at Heemlik and Jadpers, "are leaving. Jadpers, come with us. I'll give you lot the commander back at the base of the mountain, understood?"

  The soldiers glanced at one another, uncommitted. They didn’t have much choice if their objective was to protect Abadir. They looked to Heemlik.

  "Understood?!" Heemlik bellowed. It was an automatic bellow, the vocal equivalent of a smart salute with no feeling to it. Right now, any certainty Heemlik felt was an extension of Kaanel’s. Immediately the soldiers saluted and backed away. He met eyes with Kaanel, and nodded. Some of the soldiers looked surprised when Heemlik joined them. They watched as the four left together between the rows of shackled prisoners.

  Heemlik did not meet the eyes of his father. He wouldn't make it to the base if he did.

  “Do not follow us,” Heemlik added. “I will take care of this. Abadir will return safely. If I see you on the steps above us, there will be problems.”

  ***

  This was the first time in Heemlik's life where the journey down the cliffs felt slower than the journey up. Especially once they'd made it past the back of the queue of sacrifices, and there was an awful stretch of rough-hewn stairs alone with Abadir being forced forward by Kaanel. It was the most exhausting post Heemlik could think of, keeping a close eye on his own father who he both admired and feared so greatly. There were dangerous prisoners who needed to be crippled preemptively, and his father definitely would have been one of those in different circumstances.

  The view from the staving cliffs was unmatched even by Castle Gaar. Although the Fade had spread outward in every direction except Adalaant’s for the last half century, it had come to surround the Gaar. On a map, Gaar-Adalaant looked like a circle cut around the Gaar from out of the misty expanse. Every horizon except the southwest ended in the wall of mist. A laborer saw the maw open and ready to consume them in almost every direction.

  Heemlik spent the entire flight of steps trying fruitlessly to formulate an answer to the questions he knew his father would ask at the baottom. In his calm voice, not an angry shout. That was the worst of it. It seemed that no matter how horrific the things Abadir carried out or threatened to carry out, Heemlik found it impossible to despise him when he looked at him. When Timoor got punitive, Heemlik had to try not to strike him. When Abadir got punitive, Heemlik had to try not to strike himself.

  They reached the base of the cliffs, where two Eerind honor guards stood watch. The men gripped their sabers and raised their shields at the sight of Kaanel's glowing engram, the Prisnidine, and their captive commander.

  "Stand down," Heemlik ordered. "The suns have this under control."

  What am I going to say to my men? Heemlik thought at the uncertainty he saw in their eyes. What will they accept? Will they follow me?

  "Friends," Kaanel said, pushing Abadir forward between them. "Everything will make sense soon. You know how to take orders."

  Heemlik recognized one of the two men as a suspect of the Gaar, a man who was growing convinced the whole blood machine was no longer necessary to keep the Fade at bay. Heemlik realized he’d never turned in any of the sympathizers like him, even when he executed Bite. That was good; whatever happened after this moment, that loyalty to his own men would be rewarded.

  There was a reason Kaanel was doing the talking, though. He did not have the same distance from the soldiers that Heemlik did. They told him more of their thoughts than they told Heemlik. This was a big part of what made their relationship so important, because it was the only way Heemlik could truly tap into the sentiment among the ranks.

  Faced with their commander in a hostage situation to a Prisnidine, a scriptomancer, and the heir, the two soldiers were hesitating.

  "Leave us."

  Everyone turned to Abadir, who had spoken. Kaanel's knife pressed against his back, but he wouldn't move forward. Kaanel stopped in place, waiting.

  "Leave us!" Abadir repeated, louder this time. As if he were on a battlefield, not as though he were angry. The two men awkwardly made their way around the party of four, and scaled the steps with so many glances over their shoulders that one of them nearly tripped.

  The four were alone.

  "May I turn around?" Abadir asked. Kaanel looked to Heemlik, who nodded once. When Heemlik saw Abadir's face, he wished they were both wearing helmets.

  Abadir was crying.

  "My son," he said in a cracked voice. "Why?"

  Heemlik had no idea what to say. He'd strayed from his father's teachings, and now nothing made sense anymore. Just as he'd been warned it wouldn't.

  “My son, most people live their lives outside the guidance of the Suns. Even most Adalaantians, I fear. That is why we have the Gaar, whether the Fade is active or not.”

  Is it any wonder the world is such a mess? It is full of confused people with no light in the tunnel of life.

  I would be just like them without it. You would be just like them without it.”

  But Heemlik remembered how he felt after talking to Jadpers in that cell. He remembered how he felt after discovering that his future husband had a moon-shard. He remembered how he felt when he'd skipped one Staving ritual. He remembered how he felt when he beheaded his dog. He remembered how he felt during this Staving ritual, and especially when his father forced a vampire to carry his blood to the Suns' court.

  The world hadn't made any sense then either. But at least this way, Jadpers was alive, Kaanel was alive, and Bite still could've been alive. The Stavings could stop. There was a better way. There had to be. It didn't make sense yet, but Kaanel said that if he tried, it would. Someone had to start it somewhere.

  But he didn't say any of that. He didn't know how. Instead, Heemlik said something stupid:

  "I'm sorry, father."

  He regretted it instantly. Kaanel and Jadpers both raised eyebrows, as if worried that he wasn't committed. As if Heemlik could somehow go back after all he'd done.

  Worse, Abadir's tears continued to flow. It hadn't even worked.

  "I love you, father," Heemlik tried, desperate. "I'm trying to protect our people."

  Abadir had spoken so much in Heemlik's life that his eyes carried the conversation by themselves:

  Then why do you refuse to feed the Fade, as the Suns commanded us? Why do you spare Prisnidines who carried plagues to our forefathers? Why do you lie with a scriptomancer who practices the magic of the night?

  “You didn’t even tell me Kaanel was a scriptomancer,” Abadir said aloud. “You intended to keep him from me. Keep him within you, corrupting you from inside.”

  "Father, I – look, I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm just trying to do what I want the suns to see me doing. The Fade hasn’t been aggressive anywhere else in the world. It’s been fifty years, and no one believes the king when he says otherwise anymore. Now they’re sending children to the Gaar too, and ... it – look, it all just feels wrong."

  "You used to make me so proud," Abadir said, slowly shaking his head.

  "I will make you proud, father!" Heemlik said, louder than he meant. He tried not to look at Jadpers as he went on. He did not need her to think he was looking to her for guidance on dealing with an all-powerful father figure.

  "But … look, in order to make you proud, sometimes I need to do what's best for our people. Even if it hurts you. Even if it hurts me. Isn't that what you taught me?"

  Abadir squeezed his eyes shut, and more tears flowed out. "Now you twist my words against me. Your husband, and this Prisnidine, have turned you against your gods. Turned you against your people. Did I not teach you that they would lie, that they would come from near and far? That they would pretend to work for Adalaant's people? That they would be hidden in plain sight?"

  Abadir slowly sank to his knees. He hung his head, releasing Heemlik from that horrible eye contact.

  "My son," he wept. "You were my life's work. Heemlik, are you lost to me? Has it all been for nothing? Have I failed you? Have I failed the King, and the Gods, and my father before me?"

  This was the first time in Heemlik's life that he'd ever seen his father … well, pathetic. Abadir would guilt-trip him sometimes, but never using himself. He never said, "you wouldn't want to break my heart", or "it's as if I have to do everything around here." He always made it about the suns, or the people, or even his husband. Yet hurting him this way stabbed Heemlik to the core. He felt as though he were lashing the man to death in a fade-talent field.

  "No, father," Heemlik said, kneeling down. "You haven't failed me. You taught me so much, and I assure you I haven't forgotten a word of it."

  "Are you going to kill me?"

  Heemlik stood back up, taken aback. "No! I will not kill you, father. I will only kill who I must. Just like you taught me."

  "You break every other rule I taught you," Abadir said. His voice had lost any weakness or tremble. It was cold. It was deadly. It was no longer vulnerable.

  "Yes, but – "

  "Heemlik!"

  Everyone except Abadir turned to Jadpers.

  "What?" he snapped. "What do you want now? Haven't I done enough for you? Can't you see what – "

  "Heemlik."

  Heemlik turned to Kaanel, who had laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. Heemlik’s voice lost all its fervor just as quickly.

  "What? What, my husband?"

  "You listened to her in the cell," the scriptomancer said quietly. "Listen to her one more time."

  Heemlik turned to Jadpers.

  He listened. Except on one crucial point.

  ***

  A few minutes later, the three departed for Castle Gaar. Abadir watched them go, until they had disappeared over the hills and forests of the land. They were off to Castle Gaar to start their recruitment against him. They had left the people on the staving cliffs to him.

  Abadir had remarkably steady hands. This suited him well whether he was aiming a weapon at prey, performing surgery, or wielding a rapier. As he knelt now, gazing after the departing traitors, his hands rested in his lap, completely unmoving. Usually this was an outward sign of how calm and focused his mind usually was, but now it provided an excellent contrast to the rumbling storm behind his severe purple eyes.

  Abadir’s entire body held almost as still as his hands until Heemlik exited from view.

  He had a son to save, and a sleeping Fade to appease.

  Leads