Page 61 of Acolyte (Tempris #2)

-From the personal notes of Ivain Castaro, Marquess of Tempris

Breena was married today.

Due to my position in the family, I was, of course, invited.

However, since she hasn’t spoken to me since the incident—ignored all my letters trying to explain my reasons for doing what I did—I thought it would be kinder to not attend.

Breena always dreamed of her wedding day, and I did not want to spoil it with old grudges.

Sarina tells me that the ceremony was lovely, the bride more than radiant, and that the gift I sent was well received. I recognize Atlas’ hand in this, but it still gives me hope that perhaps reconciliation may not be as impossible as it once seemed .

It was late afternoon, and Taly was sitting in the dappled shade of the great silverleaf oak that marked the center of the training arena.

Her legs were crossed, her eyes closed. Bruises painted every inch of visible skin, and one of her wrists was broken, the bone already set but still mending.

The pain, though excruciating, was a given at this point.

She’d taken a beating today. Worse than usual.

And while she normally would’ve been sitting in the infirmary, guzzling faeflower and cursing Azura’s name, time was of the essence.

If she was going to try this, it had to be now.

Before the explosions began and the world reset.

Before the memory of what had transpired that day got erased.

Nothing can escape the influence of time; therefore, everything has memory.

She’d read that in a book last week, and it got her thinking.

She would be making more progress with the fairies if she could watch replays of her matches.

It was a common training technique. Skye used to spend hours watching and re-watching the playback from his sparring sessions with Ivain, trying to see where he went wrong, how he could improve.

And while Azura hadn’t been recording her matches, Taly had been toying with a new idea.

“Wake me up before the explosions begin,” she called to the fairies that were likely nearby. She couldn’t see any peeking out of the stone arches circling the arena, but they were there. They were always watching.

Leaning back against the smooth bark of the old oak, she closed her eyes, listening to the wind, the faint rustle of leaves.

The Sight was a curious gift, and yes, she was still trying to condition herself to think of it as a gift rather than, at best, a nuisance.

The past, the present, the future—they were all part of the Weave, all accessible to a time mage through dreams. And while one needed a tether to be able to focus the vision—to find the correct timeline, the correct person, the correct event—tethers could be anything.

Pieces of hair, jewelry, well-loved books, even people.

Today, Taly wasn’t using any of those things.

Instead, she was using the ground itself.

The training yard where she had spent all day getting her ass kicked by amorphous blobs of soul energy.

Places could also retain memory, and if she managed to get this right, it would be better than any recording.

Taly evened out her breathing, feeling for the spark of her aether as she tied the final knot on the spell.

Falling asleep with the intent to dream—she had never tried that before.

Usually, she avoided her dreams. Skye was still finding new ways to die, to the point that the memory of him had become somewhat fragile in her mind.

All her life, it had always been her death that everyone dreaded.

She was mortal, and they were fey—the irony was not lost on her that so much of her mental energy was now consumed by the question “is that stupid, indestructible bastard still alive?” .

Deeper and deeper.

She cleared her thoughts.

Deeper and deeper.

The spell settled over her like a familiar weight.

Though she couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment she drifted off, the next time she became aware , the light was softer, the air cooler. The sun had moved to the opposite horizon.

It was morning.

This past morning, to be precise. That was her standing beneath the gray stone arch, warming up and stretching and already dreading the day ahead.

Slowly, Taly stood, sighing at the blissful lack of pain.

The edges of the dream were hazy, the vision seeming to curve around the area like a thin film of ice cracking under pressure.

Since she was using the training arena as her tether, she couldn’t see beyond it.

There was just a cloud of rapidly fracturing light where the palace should’ve been.

A figure materialized through the haze, coming closer.

“Alright,” Azura said as she strode into the arena, aiming for her usual place beneath the widest arch.

She was dressed in red chiffon, and her chair was blue velvet as opposed to the wine-colored silk of yesterday.

The fairies set up and tore down the Queen’s viewing area every morning and night, making it more and more elaborate each time.

One of these days, Taly was going to shatter that stupid chandelier that clinked, clinked, clinked all day long.

The tinkle of its crystals had become the soundtrack to her humiliation.

“Not that it will do any good,” Azura added as she took a seat, “but try not to disappoint me today. At this point, I’m as eager to get rid of you as you are of me.”

That was usually how Azura started the day. With a call to arms that was anything but inspirational .

Taly looked to the memory of herself, watching as she grabbed her staff. Both women shared a sigh of resignation.

The first game began with very little fanfare, and Taly took a seat beside the Queen. There were 20 fairies, and she watched as her doppelganger tagged out fifteen before she got hit at the base of her spine, then both shins, then her neck.

She unconsciously rubbed the fading bruises.

The second game, she got to seventeen fairies.

The third, eighteen.

The fourth, eighteen again.

The fifth, twenty-two. The Queen had added five more.

Game after game, Taly watched herself cast and spin, dodge and roll.

Her movements always came a fraction of a second too quick to be purely reactionary.

She was using her Sight to predict the fairies’ actions, countering before they had even made the decision to move.

From this vantage point, it was hard not to feel just a little bit of awe, especially when that woman sprinted for the oak and jumped, planting a foot firmly on the bark before flipping and landing back on her feet.

She moved faster than a human, like she had been born into that body. Like she had spent her entire life learning its balance and rhythms.

Taly didn’t remember feeling like that at the time.

The three fairies that had been giving chase scattered in different directions, only to stop as the spell snapped shut around them.

That’s nineteen , Taly thought. The other fairies hung suspended across the arena, dots of blue light that seemed to shiver their displeasure.

There was just one more in play, and even though she knew how this was going to end, her heart began to beat just a little bit faster when that woman spun, already weaving a spell as she dodged the ball of blue energy that continued to lunge for her like an eagle without wings.

They got more aggressive when they were desperate.

Her second self swung her staff, using it more for balance as she executed a complex series of dodges. She used the tree to her advantage—the fairies weren’t allowed to move through them—carefully navigating the sea of her suspended opponents and plucking at the strings of each spell.

A thread here, another there. It was easier to weave the spells together. Took less aether, and it allowed her to monitor a single enchantment rather than nineteen.

The spell executed, and the last fairy froze.

But as expected, more had already been added. The Queen always waited until the very last moment to add more fairies, though the wisps that entered the field…

From this vantage point, it almost seemed...

“They’re moving too fast,” she murmured. Like they were being propelled. Sped up .

And two of the fairies that had been frozen—they had somehow managed to force their way out of the spell holding them in place.

She’d originally thought it was because of some weakness in the spell.

That’s what the Queen had made her believe.

But if she stopped to think—now that she was outside the game and actually had time to think —stopping time was a basic spell, one she’d long ago mastered.

There was no flaw in her casting, no chink for the fairies to exploit .

Which could only mean one thing.

Taly turned to stare at the Queen. Her eyes were slightly unfocused as she no doubt used her own magic to predict the outcome of the game.

And then alter it.

“You’re cheating,” she whispered. Sabotaging her spells, helping the fairies, and Shards knew what else. “You don’t want me to win.”

Even through the numbness of the dream, Taly felt her heart seize.

This was not a game she had ever been meant to win. It was just a farce, some impossible task to keep her reaching for some impossible goal.

Out in the arena, her other self slammed to her knees, the fairies converging on her in a flurry of shocks and blue sparks.

And Azura… smiled.

Confronting the Queen would get her nowhere. Taly had known the woman long enough to recognize that. Azura would just say something like, “Leto, get the champagne. She finally discovered her real opponent.” Or: “Do you really expect your enemy to fight fair?”

Taly pushed herself to stand. “You’re a…” She let out a frustrated scream, kicking a spray of pebbles onto Azura’s skirts. It was petty and childish, but it also felt really good, so she did it again, sticking out her tongue for good measure.