Every clock stopped.
I did not stop them.
That was the problem.
I stood perfectly still in the center of the Hall of Hours and listened to a silence that had no right to exist.
Around me, thousands upon thousands of clocks had fallen quiet.
Some were small enough to fit inside a mortal palm.
Others towered several times my height, their enormous pendulums suspended halfway through their swings.
There were clocks carved from crystal.
Clocks grown from living silver.
Clocks made from bones belonging to creatures that no longer existed.
Some possessed twelve numbers.
Others thirteen.
One had none at all because it measured the lifespan of a species that had never developed mathematics and had considered numbers unnecessarily restrictive.
Along the highest walls floated transparent spheres containing mechanisms that measured considerably larger things.
The lifespan of mountain ranges.
The rise and collapse of empires.
The aging of stars.
One sphere marked the passage of centuries with a single movement of its hand.
Another completed one revolution every million years.
It had stopped three breaths before finishing its latest turn.
Interesting.
I lifted my hand.
Nothing resumed.
More interesting.
A temporal moth hovered near my shoulder, its translucent wings frozen halfway through a beat.
A droplet of water hung above one of the narrow silver channels running through the floor.
The long fabric falling from my shoulders had ceased moving.
Even the pale violet flames illuminating the Hall remained motionless.
Usually, this chamber was never quiet.
Tick.
Click.
Whir.
Chime.
The sounds layered together until they became something greater than noise.
A rhythm.
Existence had rhythms.
Mortals rarely noticed them.
Birth.
Growth.
Decay.
Death.
Morning into afternoon.
Afternoon into evening.
Winter into spring.
A civilization could mistake itself for permanent while already standing inside the first century of its decline.
A mountain looked immovable until one watched it for ten million years.
A child became an elder one ordinary morning at a time.
Everything moved.
Everything changed.
Everything belonged to time.
Until apparently—
my clocks had decided otherwise.
I looked upward.
The great Chronal Sphere suspended above the chamber had stopped as well.
That had happened precisely three times since I created it.
The first time, an entire universe collapsed.
The second, someone attempted to remove one hundred and twelve years from existence.
The third involved Vam.
We did not discuss the third.
Mostly because Vam became unpleasant whenever anyone mentioned it.
I extended my awareness beyond the Hall.
Past the silver doors.
Past the terraces surrounding my home.
Past the floating mountains of Aethrion.
Time remained.
Of course it did.
I could feel it everywhere.
Moving.
Flowing.
Accumulating.
Rain waited over a valley several leagues away, temporarily suspended in one of Aethrion's slower temporal currents.
A tower in the eastern district flickered between three different centuries.
In one age, it stood newly built.
In another, vines covered half its walls.
In the third, only ruins remained.
All three existed simultaneously for another seven hundred and eleven years.
Beyond it—
one of the great rivers climbed toward the heavens.
Silver water poured from the edge of a floating mountain and traveled upward instead of down, twisting through the violet sky before disappearing into clouds.
Far beneath it, the cities of the Amalaq stretched across enormous plateaus of white stone, black mineral, and silver crystal.
Bridges several miles long joined floating islands without ropes, pillars, chains, or any other visible support.
One island hung completely upside down.
Houses clung to its underside.
A garden grew along what mortals would have considered a vertical cliff.
Nothing fell.
Nothing collapsed.
Nothing moved from where it belonged unless something had first changed the law permitting it to remain.
Above all of Aethrion—
violet stars burned beneath daylight.
Everything continued.
So the clocks had not stopped because time itself had.
Only my clocks had stopped.
That was considerably more concerning.
I closed my eyes.
Listened.
Not with my ears.
With everything else.
Past seconds.
Past centuries.
Past the movement of planets.
Past the endless murmur of futures competing to become present.
And then—
I felt her.
My thoughts stopped.
That was rarer than the clocks.
Something moved beneath my ribs.
Small.
Warm.
Familiar.
And suddenly the Hall no longer mattered.
For twenty years, she had existed at the edge of my awareness.
Never clearly.
Never enough to find.
Only fragments.
The law permitted that much.
Apparently destiny enjoyed teasing.
Once, I had awakened with the scent of crushed herbs so strong in my room that I searched the table beside my bed.
Nothing.
Another time—
sunlight.
Hot.
Dry.
Golden.
Nothing like the violet skies of Klysium.
I had felt exhaustion that did not belong to me.
Fear without context.
Anger.
Frequently anger.
An impressive amount of complaining.
I had never understood what she was complaining about.
That had not prevented her from appearing extraordinarily committed to it.
Once—
laughter.
Hers.
I had known immediately.
There were certain things the soul understood without requiring explanation.
Another dream had shown me silver reflected upon water.
Eyes, perhaps.
I had spent several months wondering whether they belonged to her.
Once there had been blood.
That memory I disliked.
And through all of it—
distance.
A presence on the other side of something I could not cross.
Until now.
The warmth beneath my ribs strengthened.
Not violently.
Not painfully.
Simply—
clearly.
As though a door that had remained closed for twenty years had finally opened.
I inhaled.
Then knew.
Not guessed.
Not calculated.
Knew.
Twenty.
I opened my eyes.
Every clock in the Hall moved.
Tick.
Thousands of pendulums swung at once.
Click.
Gears resumed turning.
Whir.
The Chronal Sphere completed its movement.
Chime.
Every bell in the chamber rang together.
The sound rolled through the Hall of Hours like thunder trapped inside silver.
I remained where I was.
My Qarin had reached twenty.
The law had been satisfied.
At last.
For all its complexity, the rule had always been extraordinarily simple.
No Jinn entered Uniyani to search for their Qarin before the mortal reached twenty years of age.
Not nineteen.
Not nineteen years and three hundred and sixty-four days.
Not because the Jinn was impatient.
Not because the mortal was endangered.
Not because destiny had become inconvenient.
Twenty.
Old laws rarely concerned themselves with whether anyone liked them.
I had never resented it.
There was a time for waiting.
A time for searching.
A time for meeting.
A time for everything.
That was the nature of existence.
I understood that better than most.
Twenty mortal years was—
nothing.
Barely worth measuring.
I had watched oceans form.
Mountains rise.
Species evolve, flourish, and disappear.
I had stood beneath stars before the worlds surrounding them possessed life.
I had waited four thousand years for a single temporal fracture to repair itself because interfering would have made the damage worse.
Patience was not merely something I possessed.
It was part of me.
Which made my next thought somewhat embarrassing.
I wanted to leave immediately.
I stared ahead.
The clocks continued moving.
I considered that feeling.
Urgency.
Anticipation.
Something dangerously close to excitement.
Interesting.
I had forgotten how inconvenient anticipation could be.
I looked toward the doors.
Then toward the unfinished calculations floating above one of my tables.
They could wait.
That thought nearly made me laugh.
Nearly.
I turned.
The Hall opened for me.
Silver doors taller than most mortal houses parted without sound.
Beyond them—
Aethrion waited.
And somewhere beyond Aethrion—
beyond Ravieen—
beyond the veil between worlds—
she was alive.
Twenty.
Finally.
I stepped outside.
Aethrion had changed since yesterday.
Very slightly.
Most people would not have noticed.
I did.
A crack in one of the western floating cliffs had widened by half the length of my smallest finger.
A bridge beneath the Hall had aged another day.
Two silverleaf trees had shed their final summer leaves.
A young Amalaq passed me upon the upper terrace and bowed.
She had grown.
Not visibly.
But yesterday, childhood had still clung to her.
Today it had loosened.
She was seven years closer to her first century.
Small things.
Everything was made of small things.
Mortals believed aging happened because birthdays arrived.
It did not.
It happened between them.
One breath.
One meal.
One night of sleep.
One choice.
Then another.
Then suddenly someone looked backward and discovered that the person they had once been no longer existed.
I descended from the Hall.
The path did not travel downward.
Not exactly.
In Aethrion, direction occasionally required negotiation.
The first staircase curved beneath the edge of the floating plateau.
I stepped onto it.
For twenty-three steps, I walked down.
On the twenty-fourth—
gravity shifted.
Down became forward.
Then upward.
A mortal would have fallen.
An Amalaq child might have laughed.
I simply continued.
Below me—
or perhaps beside me—
another floating city stretched across the underside of a mountain.
Silver towers hung downward toward an open abyss.
Gardens grew from ceilings.
Children chased one another across bridges that appeared to exist sideways.
Farther away, an entire mountain floated upside down, its peak pointed toward the valley beneath it.
Around the mountain's base—
which occupied the sky—
clouds gathered.
A waterfall rose from the valley below, split into six streams, and climbed toward it.
Each stream curved around one of the bridges without touching the stone.
Order.
That was the thing mortals often misunderstood about Aethrion.
They saw impossibility.
We saw structure.
The mountain did not fall because forces held it.
The water did not rise because gravity had forgotten itself.
Gravity had simply been instructed differently here.
Everything obeyed something.
Even chaos had laws.
People simply disliked admitting they had not discovered them yet.
I crossed the Bridge of Nine Directions.
A flock of glass-winged birds flew overhead.
Thirty-seven.
One would die tomorrow.
Not violently.
Old age.
Six years remained for the youngest.
Two hundred and three for the largest.
I watched them disappear between floating cliffs.
Then continued.
A courtyard opened ahead.
At its center stood a garden.
I slowed.
Not because I needed to.
Because a flower there had been preparing to bloom for eight hundred and fourteen years.
Black stem.
Silver leaves.
One enormous closed violet bud.
Amalaq scholars had argued for centuries about what would happen when it finally opened.
Three schools of thought had formed.
One minor religious movement.
And, inexplicably, a gambling ring among the younger Jinn.
The flower had another forty-three years, seven months, twelve days, six hours, and approximately nine minutes remaining.
Not today.
I continued walking.
A gardener looked up.
"High Amalaq."
I inclined my head.
He studied me.
Then glanced toward the Hall behind me.
"You're leaving early."
"Yes."
That seemed to concern him.
I had apparently become predictable.
Disturbing.
He looked toward the garden.
"The Velorian hasn't bloomed."
"I noticed."
"Then why—"
He stopped.
Realization.
His eyes widened.
I continued walking before he could ask.
Some discoveries belonged first to the person making them.
Or, in this case—
the person I intended to find.
Aethrion extended beneath the violet sky.
White terraces.
Silver roads.
Black stone monuments.
Floating palaces.
Rivers running in directions rivers had no business attempting.
At the far edge of the capital stood an ancient tower.
It flickered.
New.
Old.
Ruined.
New.
Old.
Ruined.
A group of children sat nearby watching it.
One pointed whenever the ruin appeared.
I heard him announce very seriously:
"It fell."
Another child sighed.
"It hasn't fallen yet."
"It did."
"It will."
"Same thing."
I smiled.
Barely.
Children occasionally understood time better than scholars.
I passed beneath an arch of living crystal.
Ahead—
far beyond the final terraces—
rose Otharam.
Even from here, the Tree of the Unbroken Law dominated the horizon.
Its white trunk rose impossibly straight from the central plateau.
No lean.
No twist.
No evidence that wind, age, gravity, or preference had ever influenced its growth.
Black rings circled its bark like writing.
Branches spread across the sky in patterns too precise to be natural.
Anyone counting them received a different answer.
I had stopped attempting approximately nine hundred thousand years ago.
Otharam waited.
Beyond it—
Ravieen.
Beyond Ravieen—
Uniyani.
My Qarin.
The warmth beneath my ribs pulsed again.
I stopped.
Briefly.
She was—
moving.
Not toward me.
Obviously.
She had no reason to know where I was.
But something about the bond felt unsettled.
Grief?
I frowned.
There.
Gone.
A sharp sensation.
Pain.
Then anger.
A surprising amount of anger.
Ah.
That felt familiar.
I resumed walking.
For twenty years I had occasionally wondered what kind of person destiny had chosen for me.
Patient, perhaps.
Quiet.
Contemplative.
Someone whose temperament naturally balanced mine.
That seemed reasonable.
The bond sent another flare of irritation from somewhere beyond the veil.
I reconsidered.
Perhaps not.
A shadow passed overhead.
I looked upward.
Bird.
Small.
Round.
Blue-black feathers.
Gold along the wings.
It circled once.
Twice.
Then dove.
I didn't move.
The bird landed directly on my shoulder.
Its claws settled very carefully against the silver fabric of my robe.
I continued walking.
The bird remained completely still.
So did I.
Three seconds passed.
Then five.
Then nine.
I looked ahead toward Otharam.
"Escaped again, I see."
The bird froze.
A tiny head turned slowly toward me.
Innocence radiated from its entire body.
Unconvincingly.
I sighed.
"Shi."
The bird chirped.
"That was not a question."
Another chirp.
"Nor was that an answer."
Feathers rippled.
The creature expanded.
Talons stretched.
Wings folded inward.
Blue-black feathers became pearlescent skin.
Its tiny body lengthened until someone was suddenly walking beside me where no one had been a moment before.
Shi landed with considerably more flourish than necessary.
Naturally.
Their floral-white hair spilled in soft curls around their shoulders.
For perhaps half a second.
Then they frowned at it.
The curls straightened.
Shi examined one strand.
"No."
The hair shortened to their jaw.
They tilted their head.
"No."
It grew again.
Long this time.
Nearly to the waist.
Shi smiled.
"Better."
Their rainbow-colored eyes shifted toward me.
Every color moved through them.
Violet.
Gold.
Blue.
Green.
Red.
Colors without mortal names shimmered between them.
Their skin caught Aethrion's light with a faint pearlescent sheen.
I continued toward Otharam.
Shi walked beside me.
For approximately six steps.
Then backward.
"So."
"No."
"I haven't asked anything."
"You were about to."
Shi put one hand against their chest.
"You wound me."
"You recovered remarkably quickly."
"I am resilient."
"You were a bird three moments ago."
"Also true."
They turned, still walking backward.
A silver waterfall climbed into the sky behind them.
Shi glanced toward it.
Then suddenly became a bird again.
They launched upward.
I continued walking.
There was a shout somewhere above.
A startled flock scattered.
Shi returned approximately eight seconds later in Jinn form.
They landed beside me.
"What was that?"
"A flock of auric swifts."
"I've never seen them that close."
"You have."
"When?"
"Two hundred and eleven years ago."
Shi frowned.
"What form was I?"
"An auric swift."
Their expression brightened.
"Then technically I still haven't seen them."
I looked at them.
Shi smiled.
"Not with these eyes."
"Those were also your eyes."
"Were they?"
"Yes."
"Interesting."
They walked beside me for another ten steps.
Then reached toward a black crystal growing from the path.
I caught their wrist.
"No."
Shi looked at my hand.
Then the crystal.
"Why?"
"It records intentions."
Their eyes widened.
"What kind?"
"All."
They immediately reached for it with their other hand.
I caught that wrist too.
"Kasa."
"No."
"You've made it sound more interesting."
"That was not my intention."
"Then perhaps you should touch the crystal."
I released them.
Shi laughed.
We continued.
I had known Shi long enough to understand that telling them not to investigate something generally increased the likelihood of investigation by approximately eighty-three percent.
Ninety-one if the object was dangerous.
Nearly one hundred if someone described it as forbidden.
Curiosity was not a habit for Shi.
It was practically an organ.
They wanted to experience everything.
Not merely observe.
Experience.
A storm existed?
Shi wanted to become something that could fly inside it.
A new species was discovered?
Shi wanted to know how the world looked through its eyes.
Someone invented a musical instrument?
Shi wanted hands shaped precisely enough to play it.
A philosopher proposed a strange theory about identity?
Shi would debate them for six hours, become a fish halfway through, and somehow continue the conversation underwater.
Change delighted them.
That was perhaps why they tolerated me.
We were opposites in that regard.
I watched change.
Shi chased it.
I understood transformation as consequence.
Shi understood it as possibility.
Perhaps both were necessary.
Shi tilted their head.
"Kasa."
"Yes."
"Do you think something remains itself if every part of it changes?"
I continued walking.
"You've asked me that before."
"When?"
"Four hundred and eighty-three years ago."
Shi thought.
"I was someone else then."
I glanced toward them.
"You were a fox."
They smiled.
"Exactly."
"That does not strengthen your argument."
"It strengthens it considerably."
"How?"
"The fox asked."
"You were the fox."
"Was I?"
"Yes."
"Can you prove that?"
"I watched you transform."
"That proves continuity of matter."
"It also proves continuity of consciousness."
"Perhaps consciousness is simply very convincing."
I looked ahead.
"Perhaps."
Shi stared.
I felt their surprise without needing to look.
"You agreed with me."
"I acknowledged the possibility."
"That's nearly agreement."
"It isn't."
"Kasa."
"Shi."
They grinned.
Then changed their nose.
Only their nose.
Smaller.
Then longer.
Then slightly crooked.
They considered their reflection in the polished silver of my bracer.
"Thoughts?"
"You have had that nose before."
"Of course you remember."
"You wore it for seventy-three years."
"I liked it."
"You complained about it constantly."
"I contain multitudes."
"You contain complaints."
"Also multitudes."
I nearly smiled.
Again.
Troubling day.
Shi returned their face to its usual balance of sharp and soft.
Handsome and beautiful.
Masculine and feminine.
Neither.
Both.
Something else entirely.
They looked toward Otharam.
Then toward me.
Their expression changed.
Only slightly.
Curiosity sharpened.
"Kasa."
I knew that tone.
"What?"
"Why are you going to Otharam?"
I said nothing.
Shi narrowed their kaleidoscopic eyes.
Then looked at my clothing.
The travel mantle.
The silver bracers.
The belt containing several artifacts I rarely carried inside Aethrion.
Their gaze dropped to my boots.
Then returned to my face.
For once—
Shi stopped wandering.
Stopped changing.
Stopped joking.
They walked beside me.
Forward.
"Kasa."
The warmth beneath my ribs pulsed again.
Twenty.
I looked toward the Tree of Unbroken Law.
Then at Shi.
Their expression had gone very still.
They already knew.
Or suspected.
Interesting.
I continued walking.
Shi matched my pace.
For perhaps the first time all morning—
they did not ask another question.
Not yet.
And somehow—
their silence was considerably louder.
Shi remained quiet for another thirty-seven steps.
That alone was enough to make me suspicious.
Then they looked at Otharam.
Then at me.
Then at Otharam again.
Their eyes dropped to my travel mantle.
The silver bracers.
The belt.
The small collection of artifacts secured at my waist.
The boots designed for roads considerably less cooperative than Aethrion's.
Recognition arrived slowly.
Then all at once.
The grin disappeared.
"You're leaving."
There it was.
No joke.
No performance.
No attempt to make the question sound smaller than it was.
I looked ahead.
Otharam's white trunk rose beyond the final terraces, disappearing into clouds.
"Yes."
Shi stopped walking.
I continued for three steps before realizing they had not followed.
When I turned, they were standing exactly where I had left them.
Their face had become very still.
Not frozen.
Shi was almost never truly still.
Even when their body remained motionless, something usually shifted.
Hair.
Eyes.
The angle of their ears.
The length of their fingers.
A flicker of feathers beneath skin.
A tiny transformation performed simply because remaining identical for too long apparently offended them.
Now—
nothing changed.
"The mortal realm."
"Yes."
Their eyes narrowed.
Then softened.
Then—
understanding.
"Your Qarin."
The warmth beneath my ribs answered before I did.
"She reached twenty."
Silence.
Aethrion moved around us.
A river continued climbing into the sky.
Far below, bells rang from one of the lower cities.
A flock of glass-winged birds passed between floating mountains.
Shi looked toward Uniyani as though they could somehow see through Otharam, through Ravieen, through the veil itself.
Then they smiled.
"Wonderful."
It was a very convincing smile.
Their eyes ruined it.
"Shi—"
"Twenty years."
Their smile remained.
"She reaches twenty and you get to leave."
I said nothing.
Shi began walking again.
Not toward me.
Past me.
Backward.
Sideways.
Anywhere that allowed movement.
"That's how it works."
Their tone was light.
Too light.
"The sacred law."
They lifted one hand.
"Twenty years."
Another gesture.
"Door opens."
Their fingers mimed something grand.
"Destiny arrives."
"Shi."
"Very efficient."
Their hair shortened.
Then lengthened.
Then turned black.
Then white again.
Their ears became rounded.
Pointed.
Rounded.
Their hands briefly became claws.
Then ordinary.
Change without purpose.
Restlessness.
I watched.
Shi laughed softly.
"Really, Kasa. I'm happy for you."
"Are you?"
They looked at me.
That stopped the transformations.
"No."
Better.
We stood facing one another.
For perhaps the first time that morning, Shi made no attempt to hide behind movement.
"My Qarin reached twenty fifteen years ago."
I knew.
Of course I knew.
I knew the exact moment.
The exact day.
The exact hour.
The exact second.
I knew because fifteen years ago, somewhere in Uniyani, a human had crossed an invisible boundary in their life—
and Shi's Mortal Road had opened.
I had felt the change in Ravieen.
So had the others.
Vrossa.
Vam.
Tsio.
Kien.
Kyu.
We had said nothing.
We had obeyed.
Shi's voice remained quiet.
"They would be thirty-five now."
"Approximately."
Their eyebrows lifted.
"Approximately?"
"I don't know the precise length of their mortal calendar year."
"Comforting."
A pause.
"Do you know what they look like?"
"No."
"Where they live?"
"No."
"Whether they're alive?"
That question struck differently.
"I believe so."
Shi looked away.
"Believe."
"I would know if the bond vanished."
"Would you?"
"Yes."
"Good."
They nodded.
Once.
Small.
"That's good."
Then they laughed again.
Not because anything was funny.
I had watched civilizations use humor at funerals.
Soldiers joke before battles.
Parents laugh while children were dying because the alternative was screaming.
Humor was not always joy.
Sometimes it was merely pressure finding somewhere to escape.
Shi turned away from me.
"Fifteen years."
I heard every one of them inside the words.
Five thousand four hundred seventy-eight days, depending upon which mortal calendar applied.
Fifteen summers.
Fifteen winters.
Fifteen birthdays.
Fifteen years of mornings.
Evenings.
Illnesses.
Conversations.
Meals.
Friendships.
Losses.
Perhaps love.
Perhaps loneliness.
Perhaps someone looking toward a world they did not know existed, occasionally feeling something inexplicable in their chest and wondering why.
Time was often described as abstract.
It wasn't.
Time was made of events.
A year was not a number.
It was every moment inside it.
And Shi had lost fifteen of them.
Not through fate.
Not through law.
Through us.
Shi turned back.
"Does she know you're coming?"
"No."
"Can she feel you?"
"Perhaps."
"Can she hear you?"
"Not clearly."
"Do you know her name?"
"No."
Another little laugh.
"You know nothing."
"I know enough."
"She's yours."
The word made me look at them.
Shi saw it.
"Not ownership."
They waved one hand.
"I know. Sacred resonance. Eternal counterpart. Two souls threaded through ancient magic. I've heard the speeches."
Their mouth twisted.
"Often."
I waited.
Shi tilted their head.
"Do you love her?"
Interesting question.
"I haven't met her."
"That's not what I asked."
I considered.
"Not yet."
"Yet."
"Perhaps."
Shi smiled faintly.
That one was real.
Then it faded.
"I think I love mine."
I didn't answer immediately.
Shi looked embarrassed by their own admission.
Another rarity.
"I don't know them."
Their fingers shifted.
Five became six.
Then back to five.
"I don't know their face."
Their hair turned blue.
Then silver.
"I don't know their voice."
Their skin briefly darkened into polished obsidian before returning to pearl.
"I don't know if they're kind."
Their eyes remained rainbow.
Those never changed.
"I don't know if they would even like me."
"They might."
"Everyone likes you. That's hardly useful."
"That is demonstrably false."
Shi snorted.
Then—
quiet again.
"I dream about someone sometimes."
I watched them.
"They're always standing near water."
"You've never mentioned that."
"I didn't want to."
"Why?"
"Because then it becomes real."
That answer belonged to someone far less carefree than Shi usually allowed others to see.
They looked toward Otharam.
"The dreams started after they turned twenty."
"That would make sense."
"Sometimes I hear laughter."
Their expression softened.
"Not mine."
They touched the center of their chest.
"Sometimes anger."
"That also sounds familiar."
Shi glanced at me.
"Your Qarin is angry?"
"Frequently."
"Wonderful."
"I don't know why."
Shi grinned.
"Perhaps she senses your personality."
"That seems unlikely."
"Does it?"
I ignored that.
Shi's grin lasted several seconds.
Then their gaze returned to my travel clothing.
And grief found its way back in.
"You get to go."
"Yes."
"Today."
"Yes."
"Because she reached twenty."
"Yes."
"And mine reached twenty fifteen years ago."
I said nothing.
Shi stepped closer.
Not threatening.
Simply unwilling to allow distance to make the question easier.
"If the bond is sacred..."
Their voice lowered.
"...why is mine less sacred than yours?"
There are questions that can be answered with knowledge.
Others require philosophy.
Others require honesty.
This required only the last.
"It isn't."
Shi stared at me.
No argument.
No explanation.
No ancient law twisted into justification.
No speech about necessity.
No reminder that they were Shathyr.
The last Shathyr.
The survivor.
The secret.
The problem the Amalaq had spent centuries deciding how to contain.
Just—
"It isn't."
Shi's throat moved.
"Then why?"
I knew the answers we had used.
Because Shi's memories were gone.
Because no one understood how they survived the slaughter.
Because the Shathyr were capable of transformations no other species could replicate.
Because an entire people had been exterminated, and somehow one remained.
Because if Shi remembered—
we did not know what memories would return.
Because if Shi's power matured—
we did not know what limits it possessed.
Because some among the Amalaq feared that limitless transformation could destabilize the balance they existed to preserve.
Because fear occasionally dressed itself as caution and demanded to be called wisdom.
Vrossa had agreed.
Tsio had agreed.
Kien had reluctantly agreed.
Vam had called it cowardice.
Kyu had said little.
I—
had waited.
Observed.
Measured.
Told myself that time would reveal the correct course.
It had.
Fifteen years ago.
We simply had not listened.
"Because we were afraid," I said.
Shi blinked.
"Of me."
"Of what we didn't understand."
"That's a prettier version."
"It is."
Their mouth twisted.
At least they appreciated honesty.
I looked at them.
Really looked.
Shi.
Curious.
Reckless.
Infuriating.
Compassionate in ways they pretended not to be.
Capable of becoming nearly anything and somehow remaining unmistakably themselves.
I remembered finding them centuries ago trying to transform into a creature they had only seen in a painting.
The painting had been anatomically inaccurate.
The result had possessed seven knees.
Shi had considered this fascinating.
I remembered them sneaking into Somnyra because they wanted to know whether they could shapeshift inside someone else's dream.
They could.
Unfortunately.
I remembered them spending twelve years as several different animals simply because they wanted to understand whether identity changed when language disappeared.
I remembered them sitting beside a dying Ghoul for three days, changing into every creature the old Jinn remembered from childhood because it made him smile.
Dangerous?
Potentially.
So was I.
So was Vam.
So was every Amalaq capable of bending the laws governing existence.
Power had never been evidence of guilt.
And yet we had treated Shi's possibility as though it were a crime already committed.
Time did not heal everything.
That was another thing people misunderstood.
Time created opportunities for healing.
People still had to choose them.
Perhaps this was mine.
"Come."
Shi blinked.
"What?"
I turned toward Otharam.
"Come."
They followed automatically.
Three steps.
Then suspicion caught up.
"Where?"
I glanced at them.
"Unusually slow today."
"Kasa."
"Yes?"
"Where are we going?"
I continued walking.
"Otharam."
"I know that."
"Then your question seems unnecessary."
"You are deliberately irritating me."
"Only slightly."
Shi hurried ahead and turned so they were walking backward again.
"Kasa."
"Shi."
"Where are we going?"
I looked past them.
Otharam filled more of the horizon with every step.
Its trunk seemed less like wood the closer one came.
White.
Smooth.
Impossible.
Black rings circled it from root to crown.
The Mortal Roads waited somewhere beyond.
One newly open.
One open for fifteen years.
Enough.
I looked at Shi.
"We're going to meet our Qarins."
Shi stopped.
Completely.
I took several more steps.
Nothing behind me.
I looked back.
Shi stood with one foot slightly raised, as if time itself had frozen them halfway through movement.
Their mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
Interesting.
I had rendered Shi speechless.
I briefly considered recording the moment for historical purposes.
"Both of us?"
"That is generally what our means."
Shi stared.
"You mean—"
"Yes."
"Today?"
"Preferably."
"You're serious."
"Frequently."
"Kasa."
"Shi."
Their face changed.
Not shape.
Emotion.
Shock became disbelief.
Disbelief became hope.
Hope became something so bright I almost looked away.
Then—
the grin.
Oh.
That grin.
I knew it well.
It had preceded multiple diplomatic incidents.
At least one collapsed tower.
A stolen ceremonial crown.
The Somnyra situation.
And a century in which Shi decided doors were "too predictable" and refused to use them.
They stepped toward me.
"Kasa."
"Yes."
"I have never loved you more."
"That is concerning."
They threw their arms around me.
I went still.
Shi squeezed.
I remained still.
"You can return my affection."
"I could."
"You're choosing not to."
"Yes."
"Cold."
"Accurate."
Shi released me.
Then immediately transformed into a large white bird.
Launched upward.
Circled Otharam once.
Returned as themselves.
"Can we go now?"
"We are going."
"Faster?"
"No."
"Kasa."
"You waited fifteen years."
Their expression flattened.
I regretted the sentence immediately.
Not because it was untrue.
Because it was cruel.
Shi looked away.
"Yes."
I stopped.
"That was poorly said."
They glanced at me.
An apology from me was rare enough to earn their attention.
"I know."
"No."
I turned fully toward them.
"You should not have had to."
Shi's face softened.
For one moment, neither of us moved.
Then they nodded.
"All right."
We continued.
Together.
I knew what would happen when the others discovered this.
Vrossa would object.
Tsio would calculate consequences.
Kien would disappear into a shadow and pretend he was not involved.
Kyu would ask several maddeningly reasonable questions.
Vam—
Vam would probably laugh.
For a long time.
And then remind everyone she had been correct.
Repeatedly.
Shi hummed beside me.
"What?"
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
Their grin returned.
"Everyone is going to be furious."
"Yes."
"At you."
"Yes."
"Because of me."
"Partly."
Shi looked delighted.
"This is an excellent day."
I looked toward Otharam.
"No."
"Not yet?"
"Not yet."
Because Otharam stood ahead.
And beneath Otharam—
truth did not merely emerge.
It became unavoidable.
The Tree of the Unbroken Law did not look grown.
It looked declared.
As though existence itself had once decided:
There will be a tree here.
And reality had obeyed.
Otharam's trunk rose perfectly straight from the plateau.
White bark reflected no color from the violet sky.
No scars marked it.
No knots.
No twists.
No evidence of storms.
Age.
Disease.
Or chance.
Black bands circled the trunk at irregular intervals, each covered in markings older than the oldest surviving Amalaq language.
Some claimed the markings were laws.
Others believed they were judgments.
A particularly enthusiastic scholar once spent eleven thousand years attempting to translate a single line.
He concluded it meant:
Stand correctly.
No one had been willing to tell him that interpretation was probably wrong.
Otharam's roots broke through the plateau in enormous white arches.
Some rose higher than palaces.
Others disappeared into the earth and emerged miles away.
Beyond them waited the pathways into Ravieen.
Above—
branches spread across the sky.
Perfect angles.
Perfect spacing.
Perfect order.
There were supposedly nine thousand four hundred and twelve branches.
Unless one counted them.
Then there were more.
Or fewer.
Shi had once reached twenty-seven thousand before becoming angry and transforming into a moth.
They had blamed the tree.
The tree had remained indifferent.
We approached the outer shade.
Shi stopped.
I noticed.
"What?"
They stared at the boundary where Otharam's shadow touched the silver road.
"I dislike this part."
"I know."
"Do we have to?"
"Yes."
"Could we go around?"
"No."
"Under?"
"No."
"Over?"
"No."
Shi considered.
"Become a worm?"
"The tree is not fooled by morphology."
"You're no fun."
"I've been told."
Shi took one step beneath Otharam.
And changed.
Not willingly.
Every borrowed possibility disappeared at once.
The slightly altered nose vanished.
Their hair returned to its natural floral white, falling in soft curls just below their shoulders.
Their ears settled into their true subtle points.
Their height fixed.
Their build fixed.
Pearlescent skin shimmered beneath the violet light.
And their eyes—
rainbow.
Not merely colorful.
Impossible.
Every hue seemed to move through the irises at once, sliding beneath one another like light fractured through living crystal.
Shi inhaled sharply.
Then looked down at their hands.
They tried to lengthen one finger.
Nothing happened.
They frowned.
Tried again.
Still nothing.
"I hate this tree."
"The tree is indifferent."
Shi looked up at Otharam.
"That's worse."
I continued walking.
They followed.
Reluctantly.
Beneath Otharam, concealment failed.
A merchant farther ahead crossed into the shade wearing an illusion that made his clothing appear modest.
The illusion vanished.
Gold.
Gemstones.
Far too many gemstones.
He sighed.
A young Amalaq beside one of the roots spoke:
"I completed the assignment."
The words appeared in the air before her.
White at first.
Then fractured.
The sentence reshaped itself.
I completed half the assignment and copied the rest from Merai.
Her instructor slowly looked at her.
The girl closed her eyes.
Shi leaned toward me.
"I love this tree."
"You hated it moments ago."
"I contain multitudes."
A couple passed us.
One said quietly:
"I wasn't angry."
The words became visible.
I was furious.
The other smiled.
"Thought so."
Shi snorted.
Then looked down at their own body again.
Their expression dimmed.
"No changing."
"No."
"I feel naked."
"You're clothed."
"You know what I mean."
I did.
For Shi, form was not disguise.
It was language.
Expression.
Movement.
To force them into one body was like forcing someone else to speak one word forever.
I slowed slightly.
Shi noticed.
"You don't have to pity me."
"I don't."
"Good."
"I understand."
That made them look at me.
"Do you?"
"Enough."
They studied my face.
Then nodded.
We continued toward the main root arch.
And then—
something caught my attention.
Nothing happened.
That was precisely what caught my attention.
Otharam did not react to Shi.
No black fractures appeared across their shadow.
No markings emerged upon their skin.
No roots recoiled.
No branches shifted.
No warning sounded through the bark.
The Tree of Law exposed deception.
It revealed broken oaths.
It stripped illusion.
It did not tolerate corruption hiding beneath appearance.
Yet Shi walked beneath it—
and Otharam accepted them.
Completely.
I stopped.
Shi took several steps before noticing.
They turned.
"What?"
I looked at their shadow.
Whole.
Unbroken.
Then at the white bark beside us.
Still.
Calm.
Ancient.
"Kasa?"
I had walked beneath this tree thousands of times with Shi.
I had seen this before.
I had simply never allowed myself to assign meaning to it.
Interesting.
No.
Not interesting.
Damning.
Shi followed my gaze.
"What are you looking at?"
"Otharam."
"Yes. Large. White. Judgmental. We've established this."
"It doesn't judge you."
Shi's humor faded.
"What?"
"The tree."
I looked at them.
"It has never rejected you."
Silence.
Shi glanced upward.
At the branches.
At the black rings.
At the roots.
Then back at me.
"Was it supposed to?"
"No."
"But everyone thought I might be..."
They stopped.
Dangerous.
Corrupted.
Unstable.
Something left behind by the Yfryths.
Something capable of becoming a threat.
I finished the thought for them.
"Something other than what you are."
Shi's throat moved.
"And what am I?"
The answer was extraordinarily simple.
"Shi."
Their eyes widened.
I continued.
"Shathyr."
A pause.
"Annoying."
Their mouth opened.
"Curious."
"Kasa."
"Reckless."
"You're ruining it."
"Frequently intrusive."
"I regret asking."
"Philosophically exhausting."
Shi pointed at me.
"That one is unfair."
"But corrupted?"
I shook my head.
"No."
The humor disappeared.
Otharam stood above us.
The Tree of Unbroken Law.
It had known for centuries what we had refused to accept.
Shi was not an unanswered threat.
Not a crime waiting to happen.
Not a mistake surviving past its proper era.
They were simply—
alive.
And perhaps the greater violation of balance had never been Shi's survival.
Perhaps it had been what we did with it.
Shi looked toward the root arch leading into Ravieen.
Then at me.
"Still going?"
I resumed walking.
"Yes."
They smiled.
Smaller this time.
Real.
"Good."
Together, we passed beneath the roots of Otharam.
And for the first time in fifteen years—
Shi walked toward the road that had been waiting for them.
The roots of Otharam opened around us.
Not parted.
Opened.
There was a difference.
Wood did not move.
Stone did not crack.
The enormous white roots simply stopped behaving like solid things and revealed a passage where there had not been one before.
Golden light spilled through.
Shi leaned slightly to one side.
Then the other.
"That seems unnecessary."
"It is Ravieen."
"That wasn't what I meant."
"I know."
We stepped through.
And Aethrion vanished.
Not gradually.
One moment there were white terraces, violet stars, floating mountains, and the rigid geometry of Otharam.
The next—
Ravieen.
Shi stopped.
I did not.
At first.
Then I realized they were no longer beside me and turned.
They stood beneath the root-arch with their mouth slightly open.
That was the second time today I had rendered Shi speechless.
Technically Ravieen deserved the credit for this one.
I allowed it.
The Heart of Klysium stretched around us.
Calling Ravieen a tree had always been technically accurate and emotionally inadequate.
A tree suggested scale that could be understood.
Trunk.
Branches.
Roots.
Canopy.
Ravieen possessed all of those things.
It simply possessed them in quantities that made the words feel foolish.
One luminous root curved beneath our feet and extended into the distance like a road.
It was wide enough for six mortal cities to have been built side by side upon it.
Smaller roots branched away from it.
Some became bridges.
Others spiraled upward.
Several disappeared through curtains of golden mist.
Far above—
branches crossed the impossible interior.
Some were broader than kingdoms.
Entire forests grew from their sides.
Not upon them.
From them.
Trees emerged sideways from bark thousands of feet above open space, their roots sunk into Ravieen as though gravity were a suggestion.
Water ran between them.
One river fell upward.
Another traveled vertically through the air for several miles before curving around a branch and continuing horizontally.
A third broke into thousands of droplets that remained suspended in a glittering cloud.
Creatures flew through the cavernous distances.
Winged things.
Scaled things.
Something enormous and translucent passed behind a river, its shadow briefly covering three settlements built upon a lower branch.
Shi finally breathed.
"Oh."
I waited.
They turned slowly.
Their rainbow eyes reflected far too much light.
"Oh."
"Yes."
"That's all you're going to say?"
"I've been here before."
"So have I."
"Frequently."
"Apparently I wasn't looking properly."
"That seems unlikely."
Shi stepped away from the arch.
They looked upward.
Then farther upward.
Then leaned back until I caught their shoulder before they fell.
"Careful."
"I was being careful."
"You were falling."
"Temporarily."
I released them.
Above us, through gaps in the canopy so distant they looked like cracks in reality, pieces of Klysium's violet sky could be seen.
Stars shone there.
Daylight too.
Several moons occupied portions of the openings that should not have contained moons at this hour.
Ravieen rarely concerned itself with whether separate parts of the sky agreed.
Shi turned in a slow circle.
"How large is it?"
"No one knows."
"You don't?"
"No."
That got their attention.
Their head snapped toward me.
"You don't know?"
"Ravieen is not time."
"Still."
"Still what?"
"You're ancient."
"So is Ravieen."
"Older?"
"Yes."
Shi stared at the immense root beneath us.
"Rude."
I started walking.
They hurried after me.
The road curved gently downward.
Except it wasn't downward.
Not entirely.
Distance inside Ravieen was inconvenient.
Two entrances separated by several thousand leagues in Klysium might emerge within sight of one another here.
Other roots that appeared close could require days of walking.
The Heart had its own sense of geography.
I suspected it found ours provincial.
Shi moved ahead.
Their natural Shathyr form had returned the moment Otharam released them.
The first thing they did was change their hair.
Long.
Short.
Braided.
White again.
Then they transformed into a small blue creature with four wings and flew several circles around my head.
I ignored them.
They returned beside me.
"Can I touch the river?"
"Which one?"
Shi looked around.
"Fair."
"Don't touch the red one."
Their eyes immediately searched for it.
"Why?"
"It occasionally remembers being lava."
"Occasionally?"
"Yes."
"How occasionally?"
"Shi."
They grinned.
We continued.
And everywhere—
roads.
Ravieen's great internal roots diverged in every direction.
Each belonged to somewhere.
Someone.
Some people of Klysium.
Some roads were crowded.
Others nearly empty.
Some welcomed travelers with light.
Others required permission.
One smelled faintly of rain.
Another of old books.
Another of ash.
One seemed to whisper whenever we passed.
Shi looked left.
"What is that?"
A distant root glowed gold.
Not yellow.
Gold.
Deep.
Metallic.
Warm.
At its far end stood an enormous opening shaped naturally within Ravieen's wood.
Beyond—
mountains.
Kharazuun.
Even through the threshold, the Rhazeth homeland gleamed.
Dark peaks rose higher than mortal atmosphere had any right to permit.
Great fractures opened through the mountainsides, exposing caverns filled with crystalline forests.
Some crystals were larger than towers.
Gold veins burned through black stone.
Far inside one opening I could just make out terraces carved into a cavern wall.
Thousands of lights.
A city.
Shi leaned toward the road.
"Kharazuun?"
"Yes."
A Rhazeth delegation emerged from the golden passage.
Six Jinn.
Gemstones grown directly into their armor.
One wore a sapphire at the throat containing a storm.
Lightning flashed inside it.
Shi noticed.
Their eyes widened.
"Can I—"
"No."
"I was only going to ask."
"No."
"What if they let me?"
"No."
"You've become authoritarian."
"I've always been authoritarian."
"True."
We passed.
A little farther ahead, water ran across the road.
Not toward us.
Up.
Shi stopped.
The stream climbed vertically from beneath the root, arched overhead, then disappeared into another opening.
Beyond it—
Mazharaan.
Ocean.
Then another ocean above it.
Shi stared.
I allowed myself one glance.
The Lower Sea stretched dark and endless beneath floating islands.
Above those islands hung another body of water across the sky like an inverted world.
Fish moved through it.
Enormous ones.
Waterfalls connected the two seas.
Some fell.
Some rose.
One traveled sideways.
A Mazharb moved along the shoreline in the distance.
Even from here, they were enormous.
Shi whispered:
"I forgot how beautiful that was."
"Beauty tends to survive memory."
"That's annoyingly poetic."
"It was not intended to be."
"That's what makes it worse."
The water-road faded behind us.
Then wind struck.
Not air.
Wind.
Directed.
Purposeful.
It rushed across the root, caught Shi's hair, and immediately transformed their curls into an enormous white disaster.
Shi stopped.
I continued.
"Don't say anything."
"I wasn't going to."
"You were thinking it."
"Frequently."
They flattened their hair with both hands.
The road beside us rose into open air.
No bridge.
No visible root.
Just wind.
Beyond it floated Sahrya.
Islands hung above clouds.
Some carried cities.
Others gardens.
Several rotated slowly.
Silk banners stretched between towers.
A Zafirah crossed the open sky without wings, standing inside a current that carried them between two islands.
Shi's annoyance disappeared.
"Oh."
Then they smiled.
"I want to do that."
"You have wings."
"That isn't the point."
"It generally is when flying."
"No. They aren't flying."
Shi watched another Zafirah disappear into cloud.
"They're being carried."
"Yes."
"Completely different experience."
"You've been carried by wind."
"Not like that."
"How do you know?"
Shi considered.
Then grinned.
"Exactly."
I walked faster.
A warm gust reached us next.
Heat.
Ash.
Sulfur.
Shi inhaled.
"Narath."
The path toward Narakael glowed ember-red.
Far through the entrance, volcanoes split a black horizon.
Lava flowed between forests that were actively burning.
Scarlet flowers grew through ash at the edge of the fire.
A flock of dark birds flew directly into one eruption.
Shi stared.
"Do you think they'd let me become one of those?"
"The birds?"
"Yes."
"Ask them."
They brightened.
I looked at them.
"Later."
Their shoulders dropped.
"Cruel."
We passed.
Then the next road appeared.
I kept my eyes forward.
Shi noticed immediately.
That was unfortunate.
The entrance to Somnyra stood between two roots.
At first, it looked like a forest.
Then a lake.
Then a staircase descending into stars.
Shi stopped.
"Kasa."
"No."
"What?"
"Keep walking."
They looked again.
Now the entrance was a field filled with doorways.
"Kasa."
"Shi."
"Why does that road keep changing?"
"It's Somnyra."
"I know."
They looked again.
The field vanished.
Now there was a house.
A very specific house.
I recognized it.
Mine.
From several hundred thousand years ago.
I did not look twice.
Shi leaned closer.
"Why aren't you looking?"
"Last time it noticed."
Silence.
I felt Shi turn immediately.
"Don't."
Too late.
They looked again.
"Oh."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"What did you see?"
"Nothing."
That meant something.
I sighed.
"Shi."
They stared into the entrance.
Their expression had changed.
Not frightened.
Curious.
Uncomfortably curious.
"What?"
"What did you see?"
Shi smiled.
"Myself."
"Which version?"
"Exactly."
I continued walking.
Behind us, Somnyra changed again.
I did not check into what.
Wise decisions deserved repetition.
The next road required no introduction.
Darkness poured from it.
Not threatening darkness.
Deep.
Quiet.
Violet moons hung beyond the opening.
Black trees rose beneath them.
Silver insects drifted through a twilight forest.
Somewhere among those trees were cities nobody would see unless invited.
Velzhara.
A Zhalar emerged from the road.
For half a second, they were simply a shadow.
Then a body unfolded from it.
Dark skin.
Navy hair.
Eyes like stars trapped in night.
Kien would have been irritated by that comparison.
Kien was irritated by many comparisons.
The Zhalar bowed to me.
Then looked at Shi.
Their eyes widened.
Shi smiled.
The Zhalar disappeared into their own shadow.
Shi looked at me.
"Rude."
"Prudent."
"Same thing from the wrong perspective."
We continued.
Light arrived next.
Too much of it.
The road into Ilyrion glowed white-gold.
Sunrise and sunset occupied the same sky beyond it.
Crystal valleys fractured light into rainbows.
Pale cities stood open beneath radiant skies.
No shadows deep enough to hide in.
No walls without windows.
Shi squinted.
"I dislike that one."
"You haven't entered."
"I don't need to."
"You said the same thing about Otharam."
"Otharam proved me correct."
The Ilmar road vanished behind us.
Then came Morvath.
I slowed.
Shi noticed.
Of course they did.
The road opened onto scarred earth.
Trenches.
Broken stone.
Old weapons embedded in hills.
A battlefield that time had never been permitted to erase completely.
But flowers grew everywhere.
White.
Red.
Blue.
Homes stood within the foundations of ruined fortresses.
Children played upon the remains of something that had once been siege equipment.
Far beyond them rose Morvaan.
Gray.
Skeletal.
Beautiful.
A tree born because Klysium finally admitted that those who had survived torture had become a people.
Shi looked at me.
"You still like it here."
"Yes."
"Why?"
I watched a Ghoul woman walk beneath Morvaan carrying a sleeping child.
"Because they remember correctly."
"Meaning?"
"They didn't heal by pretending nothing happened."
Shi became quiet.
We continued.
For some distance, neither of us spoke.
Then—
blue.
Far away.
Very far.
A road existed beyond several enormous roots.
Few traveled near it.
Nothing grew along its edges.
Blue hellfire burned through cracks in the path.
Shi stopped moving.
The humor left them immediately.
Nferhaal.
I did not look toward the opening.
I did not need to.
I remembered.
Black earth.
Burning cities.
Screams.
Hellfire consuming things that should have returned to Klysium and did not.
Bodies that left no soul behind.
The Yfryths.
Shi looked at me.
Their face had become unreadable.
For a moment—
their hair turned shorter.
Then longer.
Then dark.
Then white.
Something unsettled beneath their skin.
Memory trying to become shape.
I touched their shoulder.
"Keep walking."
Shi looked toward Nferhaal.
"I don't remember."
"I know."
"Should I?"
Not here.
Not now.
"Eventually."
They looked at me.
"That's a very Kasa answer."
"It remains true."
A pause.
Then Shi nodded.
We walked.
I did not look back.
The change happened quietly.
Shi stopped.
I took several steps before realizing.
Again.
This was becoming a pattern.
I turned.
They were standing in the middle of the root-road.
Their head tilted slightly.
"What?"
Shi lifted one hand.
"Did you hear that?"
I listened.
Water.
Wind.
Voices far away.
The creak of Ravieen's branches.
Wingbeats.
A child laughing somewhere below us.
Nothing unusual.
"No."
Shi frowned.
Their eyes moved past me.
Toward a distant road.
Not one we had crossed.
One almost hidden behind several enormous roots.
The path toward Vaeyr.
The Changing Wilds.
The lost homeland of the Shathyr.
I had not intended to pass near it.
Ravieen apparently had other opinions.
Shi stared.
Their natural form shifted.
Barely.
Not transformation.
Instinct.
Their fingers lengthened.
Then returned.
Their pupils widened.
"What did you hear?"
"I don't know."
"Describe it."
"I can't."
"You can describe anything."
"Not that."
That concerned me.
Shi took one step toward Vaeyr.
Then another.
I watched the road.
Nothing moved.
No one emerged.
The opening showed only distant wilderness.
A mountain slowly changing shape.
Forest becoming meadow.
A lake spreading across ground where no water had existed moments earlier.
Empty.
Supposedly.
Shi whispered:
"Something's there."
I followed their gaze.
Far beyond what either of us could see—
something old moved through Klysium.
Vaeysh.
The Wandering Tree of a Thousand Faces.
It had never remained still.
Not for seasons.
Not for centuries.
It walked.
Crawled.
Ran.
Changed.
Sometimes tree.
Sometimes beast.
Sometimes traveler.
Sometimes something with no name.
For a thousand years it had wandered.
Searching.
Or waiting.
Nobody knew.
Not even the Amalaq.
And somewhere beyond the Vaeyr road—
Vaeysh stopped.
Every root touched the ground.
Every changing branch became still.
Thousands of memories buried inside one impossible body stirred.
Shathyr.
Dead.
Gone.
Not gone.
A sound moved through Ravieen.
So soft I almost mistook it for wind.
Shi did not.
Their entire body locked.
One word.
Not spoken aloud.
Not exactly.
It traveled through root.
Bark.
Memory.
Magic.
Recognition.
Shi?
Shi inhaled.
Sharp.
I stepped closer.
"What?"
They didn't answer.
"Shi."
Their eyes remained fixed on Vaeyr.
Rainbow colors moved violently through them.
Someone who could become anything—
suddenly looked very small.
"Someone said my name."
I turned toward the road.
The roots beneath us trembled.
Not from Vaeysh.
From somewhere behind us.
Then—
a bell rang.
Deep.
Metallic.
Impossible to ignore.
Another answered.
Then another.
Alarm.
Shi looked at me.
I looked past them.
Toward Ravieen's central roots.
Interesting.
No.
Predictable.
"We've been noticed."
Shi's eyes widened.
Then their grin returned.
Of course it did.
"Finally."
The Heart was crowded.
Hundreds of Jinn moved along Ravieen's central branches.
Perhaps thousands.
Travelers.
Merchants.
Messengers.
Judges.
Pilgrims.
Families.
Warriors.
People crossing from one region of Klysium to another.
Ravieen had always been the closest thing our peoples possessed to neutral ground.
No species owned it.
No throne ruled it.
No border could be drawn across it.
The Heart belonged to itself.
A Mazharb walked beside a group of Rhazeth.
The Mazharb was enormous even in their reduced form.
Twice my height.
Blue-gray skin gleaming as though wet.
Every step carried the faint scent of rain.
Beside them, the Rhazeth wore elaborate dark armor threaded with gemstones.
Not decorations.
Living relics.
A ruby at one woman's shoulder burned from within.
Another Jinn wore a black crystal containing a moving memory.
Across the branch, Narath merchants argued over something while heat shimmered around their hands.
One laughed.
A spark escaped their mouth.
The nearby wooden stall remained unharmed.
Ravieen chose what burned inside it.
Several Zafirah moved above the crowd rather than through it.
Invisible wind carried them.
Their robes floated.
Hair drifted behind them.
One child lay flat upon a current with both arms spread, apparently pretending to swim through the air.
Below them, a Tahlryn passed me.
For one second, their eyes reflected my Hall of Hours.
Then someone else's wedding.
Then a battlefield.
Then nothing.
I looked away.
It was polite.
Usually.
A Zhalar stepped from one shadow and entered another twenty feet away.
An Ilmar passed them at the same moment, surrounded by enough light to make everyone nearby slightly more honest.
The Zhalar rolled their eyes.
Good.
Some rivalries survived centuries.
Ghouls walked among all of them.
Openly.
One bore old Yfryth scars across half their face.
Another had an arm that had been changed long ago into something clawed and black.
Nobody recoiled.
Nobody whispered monster.
That still pleased me.
Amalaq moved through the crowd as well.
Silver.
Gold.
Black.
White.
Regal without effort.
Several noticed me.
They bowed.
Then—
one noticed Shi.
Stopped.
Another followed their gaze.
Then a third.
Conversation died in small pieces.
A Rhazeth merchant stopped speaking mid-sentence.
A Narath turned.
One Zafirah drifted lower.
A Ghoul child pointed.
Someone whispered:
"Those eyes."
Shi heard.
Naturally.
They looked around.
More people noticed.
White hair.
Pearlescent skin.
Rainbow irises.
A body that even now seemed to shift subtly when emotion moved through them.
Recognition spread.
Not certainty.
Something older than certainty.
Memory.
Stories.
A word no one had expected to use for a living person.
"Shathyr."
Silence expanded.
Another voice:
"Impossible."
Shi looked at me.
I knew that expression.
"No."
"What?"
"Don't."
"I haven't done anything."
"You are about to."
Shi turned toward several hundred staring Jinn.
Raised one hand.
And waved.
"Hello."
I closed my eyes.
Briefly.
Of course.
Someone gasped.
Shi waved more enthusiastically.
"Still alive."
"Shi."
"What?"
"Walk."
They smiled at the crowd.
Then followed.
Behind us—
whispers erupted.
Shathyr.
Survivor.
Impossible.
How?
Who?
Last.
Alive.
The bells continued ringing.
And somewhere behind those sounds—
I could already feel Amalaq attention turning toward us.
We needed to reach the Mortal Roads.
Soon.
How irritating.
I had wanted one peaceful departure.
An unreasonable expectation, apparently.
Then I saw it.
Everything else became quieter.
Not silent.
Irrelevant.
The Mortal Roads stood beyond the central roots.
I had seen them countless times.
Closed.
Always closed.
Paths into Uniyani existed differently for each Jinn.
Ravieen knew.
The bond knew.
The road waited until the appointed moment.
For twenty years, mine had been nothing more than sealed bark between two enormous roots.
I had stood before it before.
Once when she was five.
Again at ten.
Once after the dream with blood.
I had known I could not cross.
So I hadn't tried.
There was law.
There was timing.
There was patience.
Now—
silver-white light filled the passage.
I stopped.
Shi did too.
My road was open.
For one moment—
I forgot everyone watching us.
Forgot the bells.
Forgot the approaching Amalaq.
Forgot Vaeysh.
Forgot Shi beside me.
Beyond the threshold—
Uniyani.
Blue sky.
Not violet.
Sunlight.
Golden.
Mortal.
The air itself felt different.
Shorter somehow.
Fragile.
Alive in the frantic way mortal things always were.
And beneath my ribs—
her.
The bond tightened.
Not painfully.
Completely.
I inhaled.
There.
Alive.
Real.
Not imagination.
Not dream.
Not echo.
A person.
My Qarin.
The woman whose laughter I had heard without knowing her face.
The woman whose herbs had haunted my rooms.
The woman who apparently possessed strong opinions about nearly everything.
Somewhere beyond that road—
she existed beneath that sky.
My composure failed.
For perhaps half a heartbeat.
My hand tightened.
The clocks inside me seemed to move faster.
Then I noticed Shi was no longer beside me.
I turned.
They stood before the neighboring passage.
Their road.
Open.
But not like mine.
Mine looked new.
Light freshly spilling through living bark.
The edges of the passage still glowed.
Shi's road looked—
old.
Vines crawled around the entrance.
Not enough to seal it.
Enough to show time had passed.
Dust lay along the root.
A small flowering plant had grown through one crack.
Its stem had twisted toward the Mortal Road years ago and remained there.
Fifteen years.
The evidence was everywhere once one knew how to look.
Shi approached slowly.
No jokes.
No transformations.
Nothing.
They touched the edge of the opening.
Their fingers trembled.
Barely.
"It was open."
I said nothing.
They looked toward Uniyani.
Toward the road they should have walked fifteen years ago.
"All this time."
There are moments when speech improves nothing.
This was one.
Shi traced one vine with their fingers.
"How long?"
They knew.
Still, they asked.
"Fifteen years."
Their hand stopped.
The crowd behind us felt impossibly far away.
"So Ravieen never stopped me."
"No."
They swallowed.
"Law never stopped me."
"No."
Their eyes lifted to mine.
Rainbow light.
Anger.
Grief.
Understanding.
"We did."
I could have said the Amalaq.
I could have said the council.
I could have separated myself from the decision.
I didn't.
"Yes."
Shi looked back at the old road.
A breeze crossed from Uniyani.
It carried salt.
Distant rain.
Mortal earth.
Something floral.
Shi closed their eyes.
Their Qarin was somewhere beyond it.
Thirty-five.
Alive.
Waiting.
Perhaps never knowing what they were waiting for.
Shi's expression collapsed for one instant.
Not dramatically.
That made it worse.
Fifteen years.
Then they opened their eyes.
The grin did not return.
Not yet.
Behind us—
the alarms grew louder.
Footsteps approached.
Voices.
Amalaq.
Shi kept one hand against the threshold.
And very quietly said:
"I should have been allowed to go."
I looked at the open road.
At the vines.
At fifteen years made visible.
"Yes."
That was when the first Amalaq voice rang across Ravieen.
"Kasa."
Shi's fingers tightened against the root.
I turned.
The time for patience, it seemed—
had ended.
"Kasa."
The voice carried across Ravieen with enough authority that conversations nearby died for a second time.
I turned.
Three Amalaq approached along the central root.
Not hurried.
Amalaq rarely hurried when they wanted everyone watching to understand that they were in control.
The one in front I knew well.
Sahir.
Keeper of Boundaries.
Old enough to remember when several of Klysium's current mountain ranges had still been beneath oceans.
His silver-gold hair fell in a straight line down his back, secured at the nape by a black clasp carved with the symbol of his dominion.
His eyes burned pale gold.
Not angrily.
Worse.
Decisively.
Two others followed him.
I knew them as well.
Marev, whose dominion governed consequence.
And Talyra, keeper of sacred thresholds.
Appropriate company.
Apparently someone had assembled a committee specifically designed to become irritating.
Sahir stopped perhaps twenty feet away.
His gaze moved first to me.
Then—
Shi.
Then the open Mortal Road beneath their hand.
Something hardened behind his eyes.
"Move away from the Mortal Road."
Shi looked at me.
I looked at Sahir.
"No."
Silence.
It was remarkable how much discomfort one small word could produce.
Sahir's brows lowered.
"Kasa."
"You already said my name."
A small sound came from somewhere behind us.
Possibly laughter.
Someone immediately disguised it as coughing.
Sahir did not look away.
"This is not a matter for amusement."
"I am not amused."
Shi leaned toward me.
"I am."
"Shi."
"Sorry."
They were not.
Talyra stepped forward.
Her gaze remained fixed upon Shi.
"Step away from the threshold."
Shi's fingers curled against the root.
"No."
Unlike mine, their refusal came with teeth.
Literally.
For half a second, their jaw changed.
Their mouth widened.
Sharp white fangs appeared.
Their fingers lengthened into claws.
Something predatory rippled beneath their skin—
too many joints,
too much muscle,
a body preparing to become something considerably less conversational.
Then Shi inhaled.
The claws vanished.
The fangs disappeared.
Their face returned.
I watched Sahir notice.
That was precisely the problem.
Every involuntary transformation became evidence.
Every emotional reaction became justification.
Fear had a tedious habit of feeding itself.
Marev's eyes narrowed.
"You see?"
Shi laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"I became angry."
"You lost control."
"My fingers became claws."
"You changed without intending to."
"I am Shathyr."
Shi spread both hands.
"Changing is rather central to the experience."
Marev's jaw tightened.
I stepped slightly between them.
Not enough to shield Shi.
Shi did not need shielding.
Enough to redirect the conversation.
"Their Qarin reached twenty fifteen years ago."
Talyra looked at me.
"You know why they were confined."
"I know why we told ourselves they were."
That landed exactly as I intended.
Sahir's expression changed.
Tiny.
But I saw it.
Of course I did.
I had spent too long observing what people believed they hid.
"Kasa."
"No."
I looked toward Shi's road.
The old vines.
Dust.
Fifteen years preserved along its edges.
"Ravieen opened their path."
"Ravieen does not know what Shi may become."
Shi's head tilted.
That irritated them more than insult would have.
I answered before they could.
"Neither do we."
"That is precisely the concern."
"No."
My voice remained calm.
"That is precisely the excuse."
The crowd around us grew quieter.
Amalaq rarely argued publicly.
We especially did not argue about mistakes.
Order depended too often upon appearing certain.
An unfortunate habit for beings capable of being wrong.
Sahir stepped closer.
"You remember the Shathyr."
"No."
That stopped him.
"I remember what happened to them."
A pause.
"That is different."
The Yfryths had slaughtered the Shathyr.
That was history.
Shi surviving that slaughter was not guilt.
Sahir's voice lowered.
"Their people could become anything."
"Yes."
"Creature."
"Yes."
"Jinn."
"Yes."
"Human."
"Yes."
"Things that did not yet exist."
Shi smiled faintly.
"I always liked that one."
Sahir ignored them.
"We never understood the limits of their transformation."
"Neither did they."
"And Shi remembers none of it."
There.
The wound.
Shi's smile disappeared.
Sahir continued.
"We do not know what happened during the massacre."
"I know."
"We do not know why Shi alone survived."
"I know."
"We do not know what was done to them."
Shi's shoulders stiffened.
"Kasa—"
I lifted one hand slightly.
Not silencing.
Asking.
They let me continue.
Sahir gestured toward Shi.
"Memories may return."
"They may."
"Power may return with them."
"It may."
"And if what returns is dangerous?"
I looked at him.
"Then we address what actually happens."
Silence.
"Not what frightens us in advance."
Marev's expression sharpened.
"You would gamble Klysium's safety on possibility?"
"No."
I looked toward the hundreds of Jinn gathered around us.
Narath.
Rhazeth.
Mazharb.
Zhalar.
Ilmar.
Ghouls.
Species capable of drowning continents.
Burning cities.
Destroying minds.
Breaking laws of matter.
Every one of them dangerous under the correct circumstances.
"We do that every day."
Nobody spoke.
Shi looked at me.
Their eyes had gone very still.
I continued.
"Vam could empty entire cities of life."
A few nearby Jinn shifted.
"Tsio could destroy boundaries nations depend upon."
Another silence.
"Kien can disappear into darkness no prison can completely exclude."
Someone in the crowd murmured something that sounded suspiciously like agreement.
"And I—"
I lifted one hand.
Every clock carried by anyone within several hundred feet stopped.
Ticking vanished.
Breaths caught.
I lowered my hand.
The clocks resumed.
"—control time."
Sahir stared at me.
"Power has never been evidence of guilt."
I looked at Shi.
"Until apparently it belonged to someone we did not understand."
Shi swallowed.
Sahir's voice became quieter.
"The decision was made to protect them as much as Klysium."
Shi barked a laugh.
There was the anger again.
"Protect me?"
Their hair flashed black.
Then white.
Their eyes brightened with violent color.
"You locked me away."
"We concealed you from enemies who believed your species extinct."
"For centuries."
"Shi—"
"You told everyone I was dead."
"For your safety."
"You prevented me from leaving."
"Because—"
"My Qarin turned twenty."
Shi's voice cracked.
Everything stopped.
Not time.
Conversation.
They pointed toward the old road.
"Fifteen years ago."
Nobody answered.
Shi's hand fell.
"You keep saying you protected me."
Their voice had gone soft.
"From what?"
No one answered.
"From the Yfryths?"
Silence.
"From the truth?"
Nothing.
"From myself?"
Their mouth trembled once.
Then steadied.
"Or from the possibility that one day I might remember something you don't want remembered?"
That changed things.
I looked toward Sahir.
His expression did not move.
Interesting.
Shi noticed too.
Of course they did.
Their gaze sharpened.
"What?"
Sahir said nothing.
Shi stepped forward.
"What aren't you telling me?"
"Not here."
"Oh."
Their laugh became dangerous.
"Wonderful answer."
"Shi."
"You've had a thousand years."
Sahir's jaw tightened.
"You do not remember the slaughter."
"No."
"You don't remember what happened before it."
"No."
"You don't remember who you were."
Shi's expression changed.
That one hurt.
Sahir continued anyway.
"We cannot risk those memories returning in Uniyani without knowing what they contain."
Shi stared at him.
Then—
quietly:
"So I remain a prisoner until I'm convenient to understand."
Talyra stepped forward.
"It isn't punishment."
Shi looked at her.
"If I cannot leave, it is imprisonment."
That ended that argument.
Good.
Sahir's attention returned to me.
"Kasa. Step aside."
I did not.
His gaze hardened.
"By authority of the Amalaq Council—"
"Ravieen opened the road."
He stopped.
I gestured toward the threshold.
"The law has already answered."
"Ravieen is not the Council."
"No."
I looked directly at him.
"That is why its judgment matters."
A murmur moved through the watching Jinn.
Dangerous sentence.
Necessary sentence.
The Amalaq governed Klysium.
We did not own it.
Ravieen predated our councils.
Our thrones.
Our titles.
Possibly our species.
It did not ask permission.
Sahir's voice dropped.
"You are challenging Amalaq authority."
"No."
I looked at the open road again.
"I am reminding it where authority ends."
Nobody moved.
For a moment, all of Ravieen seemed to listen.
Roots.
Branches.
Roads.
The enormous Heart beneath every species of Klysium.
Shi's Mortal Road remained open.
No rejection.
No closing passage.
No warning.
Just—
open.
Sahir saw it.
Marev saw it.
Talyra saw it.
The crowd saw it.
Law had spoken fifteen years ago.
We simply had not liked the answer.
Talyra's expression hardened.
"Close the road."
Nothing happened.
She stared.
Ravieen remained indifferent.
"Close it."
Still nothing.
Shi slowly looked at me.
I looked at them.
Their eyes widened slightly.
Then something changed.
Not fear.
Understanding.
We did not need to speak.
I tilted my head toward the threshold.
Very slightly.
Shi's mouth curved.
Oh.
There it was.
That grin.
No diplomacy survived that grin.
Sahir noticed.
"Kasa."
Too late.
I looked at Shi.
"Run."
They vanished.
Not figuratively.
One moment Shi stood beside me.
The next—
a tiny white bird shot between Sahir and Talyra.
"What—"
Marev reached.
The bird became a serpent in midair.
Long.
Silver-scaled.
Rainbow eyes unmistakable.
The serpent wrapped around Marev's arm, launched from his shoulder—
and became something with six legs before touching the ground.
I had no idea what it was.
Possibly Shi didn't either.
It was purple.
That seemed unnecessary.
"STOP THEM!"
The creature sprinted beneath a Mazharb.
Someone lunged.
Six legs became four.
Purple became black.
A wolf burst from beneath a Rhazeth merchant's cloak.
The Rhazeth shouted.
Shi barked.
Which somehow sounded like laughter.
They ran.
Amalaq moved.
Sahir threw out one hand.
A barrier formed across the root.
Shi became something the size of a beetle.
Disappeared beneath it.
Reappeared behind him as a brightly colored lizard.
Then immediately became a stag.
Antlers exploded outward.
Three Jinn dove aside.
The stag leapt.
Midair—
wings.
Huge.
White.
Feathered.
Shi soared over the crowd.
"THIS IS MUCH BETTER THAN PRISON!"
I almost smiled.
Almost.
Sahir spun toward me.
"Kasa!"
"Yes?"
"Stop them!"
"No."
His expression became extraordinary.
I would remember it fondly.
Several Amalaq launched after Shi.
One bent gravity.
Another created a lattice of golden force across the air.
A third accelerated.
That one was unfortunate.
Shi could evade them.
Probably.
But the road was still several hundred feet away.
And I had grown tired of probability.
I raised one hand.
Time changed.
Not much.
There are crude ways to manipulate time.
Stopping it entirely.
Reversing it.
Destroying sequence.
Breaking causality.
All unnecessary.
The smallest temporal alterations were often the most effective.
One second.
That was all.
I removed nothing.
I froze no one.
I simply adjusted when their actions arrived.
The first Amalaq reached for Shi.
One second late.
His fingers closed on empty air.
Shi had already become a hawk.
The second fired a binding spell.
One second late.
Golden chains wrapped around the space Shi had occupied.
Shi was now a mouse running across someone's shoulder.
The third shouted:
"LEFT!"
One second late.
Everyone moved left after Shi had already gone right.
Confusion spread.
Sahir looked around.
Realization dawned.
"Kasa."
I lowered my hand slightly.
He stepped toward me.
One second late.
I had already moved.
His expression tightened.
"Release the distortion."
"No."
"This is obstruction."
"Yes."
At least we had reached agreement somewhere.
Shi reappeared near the Mortal Road as a massive feline creature with wings far too large for its body.
They skidded.
Turned.
Became themselves.
White curls wild.
Rainbow eyes bright.
Breathing hard.
Grinning like a criminal at a coronation.
"Kasa!"
I walked toward my own road.
Behind me, Amalaq struggled against one-second delays that were doing far more damage to their dignity than their bodies.
"Go."
Shi stared.
For half a second, the grin softened.
"Kasa—"
"Go."
They looked at the threshold.
Then back at me.
Something enormous lived in that moment.
Fifteen years.
A Qarin somewhere beyond.
Freedom.
Fear.
Possibility.
Change.
Shi's specialty.
Naturally.
They smiled.
Then jumped.
The Mortal Road swallowed them.
Gone.
Several Amalaq shouted.
Sahir's face became something between disbelief and murder.
I stepped toward my own threshold.
"Kasa."
I stopped.
Looked back.
Sahir stood several feet away.
The one-second distortion had ended.
He could have attacked.
He didn't.
Neither did I.
"What are you doing?"
A reasonable question.
I looked toward the mortal sky beyond my road.
"My Qarin turned twenty."
"That isn't what I meant."
"I know."
"You've released the last Shathyr into Uniyani."
"Released is an interesting word."
"Kasa."
I stepped backward into silver-white light.
"Perhaps we should consider why."
Then Ravieen vanished.