Page 30 of Duskbound (Esprithean Trilogy #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The compact mirror Raven had given me sat on my desk, its surface reflecting the twilight that filtered through my window. I turned it over in my hands, wondering what exactly he had done to it, if he could see me right now through its glass. I snapped it closed before setting it aside. My muscles ached from sitting hunched over archive texts all day, and my mind still churned with everything I'd learned about arcanite. Or rather, what I hadn't.

It just felt like I was missing something. Arcanite seemed to be the common denominator between both the war in Riftdremar, and the one now being waged on Umbrathia. But I couldn't figure out the way the two connected. Had Sídhe taken the stores knowing they would begin draining Umbrathia nearly a decade and a half later? I knew there was more to it, but I had no idea where to look.

I changed out of the stiff uniform into sleeping clothes, but sleep felt impossible. My eyes kept drifting to the leather-bound book on my bedside table. Its gold lettering caught what little light remained. Perhaps a few chapters would force sleep to come.

I settled against my pillows and opened the book. The spine crackled, revealing elaborate script that could only have been hand-written. The Adventures and Life of Krayken Vindskald, Most Humble Servant to the Written Word and Observer of the Extraordinary . I couldn't help but smile at the grandiose introduction.

My fingers traced the weathered pages as I flipped through, scanning for anything useful, until the word Duskbound caught my eye. The ink had faded slightly, but the words remained clear.

In this, the thirtieth year of my wanderings through our fair realm, and the second spent in the dubious company of certain gentleman bandits (whose names I shall withhold for the sake of discretion and continued breathing), fortune saw fit to grant me an encounter most rare indeed—a true Duskbound.

Such beings had grown scarce as winter roses since our noble King Thaddeus claimed his throne, His Majesty being, perhaps understandably, somewhat discomfited by those whose gifts so closely mirrored his own. Yet there one sat, in a modest tavern South of what was then the prosperous township of Croyg.

At first glance, he appeared no more remarkable than any other patron seeking solace in his cups, though he ordered them with impressive frequency. His true nature revealed itself only when one of my traveling companions (let us call him Dullard, for that is what he proved to be) made the grievous error of attempting to liberate the gentleman's satchel from his person.

In a display that shall haunt my dreams until my dying day, the man rose like smoke itself, darkness erupting from his very being. The shadows moved as serpents might, wrapping poor Dullard in their cold embrace until his face turned the most fascinating shade of purple. Most curious was the complete absence of void burns upon the man's skin—a detail that did not escape my notice, though I confess my attention was primarily occupied by Dullard's rather dramatic change in complexion.

Being possessed of both scholarly curiosity and a particularly robust sense of self-preservation, I took great pains to distance myself from my former companions' unfortunate choices. Indeed, once Dullard had been deposited rather unceremoniously upon the floor (still breathing, though with a newfound appreciation for personal property), I found myself drawn to this mysterious figure.

When at last he returned to his seat, I gathered what remained of my courage—bolstered, perhaps, by the remarkable quantity of ale in my belly—and approached. My inquiries regarding his service to the Umbra were met with surprising revelation, for he had never sworn allegiance to our realm's defenders. The Void, it seemed, had claimed him in childhood, the result of a foolish dare and the sort of bravado that so often leads young boys to their doom.

When I pressed him, with all the delicacy my profession demands, to speak of his time within that endless dark, a shadow passed across his face that had naught to do with his extraordinary abilities. He stared into the depths of his mead as though it might shelter him from memories that, even after so many years, seemed to plague him still. I did not ask again, for some horrors, I have learned, are best left unspoken.

I lowered the book. The Duskbound man had remembered everything, even years later. The Void's mark went deeper than just the shadows it stitched into him. Would I be the same? Would those visions haunt me forever?

I knew I should be focusing on my plan for Urkin—or something at least useful—like sleep, but something pulled me to keep reading. My fingers traced the next page, where elaborate script detailed another encounter.

I had been summoned, with no small measure of pomp, to document what Lord Sveinson assured would be a most historic achievement—the first successful domestication of those magnificent and terrible beasts known as Vordr. Had known then what bitter folly awaited, perhaps I might have found pressing business elsewhere in the realm.

The creature they had somehow managed to capture was a sight to behold, its coat as black as a moonless night, with threads of silver running through its wings like stars woven into darkness itself. They had constructed an elaborate holding pen of polished steel and precious metals, adorned with the family's finest craftsmanship—as if such a being might be impressed by our mortal displays of wealth and station.

"Today," Lord Sveinson declared to the gathered nobility, his voice carrying all the certainty of one who has never been properly acquainted with humility, "we shall prove these creatures can be bent to proper Kalfar will."

It was then I noticed her—a stable hand who kept to the shadows of the gathering, her face drawn with the sort of concern that comes from knowing something one's station forbids them to speak. As they brought forth elaborate harnesses of tooled leather and silver chains, I observed her desperate attempts to catch her master's attention, though protocol kept her silent.

What followed shall be forever etched into my memory, though I confess I sometimes wish it were not...

The beast's reaction was as swift as it was terrible. As Lord Sveinson's eldest son approached with his elaborate bridle, the Vordr's wings snapped open with such force that the very air seemed to crack. Those magnificent wings—how curious that they reminded me so of the darkness I had witnessed in that tavern years before, the way they seemed to drink in the light itself.

Indeed, I had heard whispers in my travels, tales told in hushed voices over too much wine, that these creatures were born of the Void itself. Some swore they had witnessed Vordr vanishing into that endless dark at strange intervals, as if answering some ancient call. Others claimed they returned to the Void to breed, though none could explain how such knowledge was obtained, if it held any truth at all.

Such thoughts occupied my mind for only a moment before chaos erupted. The Vordr's rage manifested in a display of savage grace that defied description. Steel bars bent like river reeds, chains snapped like thread, and Lord Sveinson's son found himself airborne in a manner most unflattering to his station.

It was then that the stable hand—that quiet girl who had tried to warn them—did something that changed everything. As the beast reared up, preparing to deliver what would surely have been a fatal blow, she stepped forward. And dear reader, I swear upon my very profession that shadows moved with her...

The shadows that danced around her were unlike any I had witnessed before—not the raw power of a Duskbound, but something more subtle, like ink spreading through water. Later, I would learn these were the marks of one touched by the Void, though she bore her burns with more grace than most.

The Vordr's reaction was immediate and extraordinary. Where moments before it had raged with the fury of a tempest, now it stilled, those terrible wings folding as it turned its attention fully upon the girl. The gathered nobility, many of whom had been scrambling for safety mere moments before, fell silent as death.

She approached the beast with neither fear nor pretense, extending her hand as one might to an equal, not a creature meant to be conquered. The Vordr lowered its great head, and I swear by all that is sacred, it bowed to her. Not in submission, as Lord Sveinson had so foolishly hoped to achieve, but in recognition. As though they shared some profound understanding that we mere viewers could never hope to grasp.

"They cannot be tamed," she spoke then, her voice carrying despite its softness. She turned to face her master, and though her station remained humble, something in her bearing had changed. "They are creatures of the Void, my Lord. They answer to it alone."

Lord Sveinson's face had turned a shade of purple that rivaled poor Dullard's from my previous tale, though for entirely different reasons. Yet even he could not deny what we had all witnessed. The Vordr allowed the girl to lead it from its elaborate prison, and I noted with no small amount of irony that it followed her without need of chains or bridles.

I learned later that she was elevated to master of the Sveinson stables—the first void-touched to hold such a position. A small victory, perhaps, but one that began to change how our realm viewed both the Vordr and those marked by darkness.

I closed the book for a moment, letting the words sink in. Creatures of the Void itself. The thought sent a chill down my spine as I remembered Tryggar's reaction to me that first day—how he had claimed me before I'd even entered the Void, as if he'd sensed what I would become. Or perhaps what I had always been.

The memory of him standing between me and Aether in the courtyard took on new meaning. Had he known even then? Could these creatures truly see something in us that we couldn't see in ourselves?

Interest piqued, I turned to the next chapter.

After nearly fifty years of traversing our fair realm, collecting stories and memories I sometimes wished I could forget, I encountered something that defied all understanding. Something that, even now as I pen these words in my hundred and twentieth year, I have never witnessed again.

My wanderings had taken me to the Southeastern ridge of the Leidvra region, where villages grew sparse and the wilderness held secrets yet untamed. I had joined a group of warriors drawn by tales of some great beast haunting the rivers—a simple enough pursuit, or so I believed.

But what I witnessed that day far exceeded any mere beast. Indeed, dear reader, I scarce dare put it to paper for fear you might doubt my very sanity. A siphon.

My eyes fell upon the river as essence seemed to rise from its depths like morning mist, leaving the waters gray and lifeless in its wake. Yet this was not destruction—for as I watched, transfixed, that very essence redirected to the surrounding fields, where summer's cruel heat had left naught but ash. Before my very eyes, green burst forth from dead earth, life flowing back into land long thought barren.

Can you comprehend what I describe, dear reader? A force that could redirect the very flow of essence itself ? —

My heart thundered in my chest as I turned the page, only to find ragged edges where the rest of the chapter should have been. The pages had been torn out.

I shot to my feet, pacing the small confines of my room as my mind raced. A siphon? In all my studies in Sídhe, in all the texts I'd read in the archives today, I'd never encountered such a thing. But the implications... if something could redirect essence...

My eyes fell back on the book, its weathered cover suddenly feeling much heavier than before. This could be it—the missing piece I'd been searching for. The answer to everything.