Stones broken to dust.

  Bonds crumbled like rust.

  Shadows of Death and War:

  The Twins they bore.

  Temples razed to smoke.

  Alters baptized in bone.

  By Sisters conceived unwed:

  The Twins of Dread

  -Poetic Translation of a Dark Elvish Song

  Fenn charted the magic on the grip in his notebook, toiling over the runes. Spectacles on, magic sight off, sight off, specs on. If only he could afford to lose himself in the study, where there was nothing but the magic and the runes which bound it.

  But he had other troubles. Thus, whenever he thought Syrdin was bent away or busy, he would peek at the spiritual energy emanating from zheir core like an aurora of misty blue. He sketched it several times, flipping his pages back and forth. He also attempted a sketch of the half-elf spirit he had seen during the duel. There was something familiar about her eating at his attention. That he knew of such a being, he was certain.

  He finished charting the runes first. They were unusually flexible, as though they could be molded around another spell. And indeed, there had been a separate one inside, one with drastic effects. It possessed the ability to drain lifeforce from living beings and lend that energy to another. It was manipulation of not mere magic energy, but the energy of life itself. He shivered to think of it. Whoever had chosen it had been expecting a battle–that was certain. He wondered if it had been prepared for The Battle of Etnfrandia all those thousands of years ago.

  He refocused on the runes. The last few were a simple binding spell, triggered by a command meant to attach the grip to a staff. He’d have to ask Mell for her stick.

  When he looked up again, the vapor-like energy was gone from Syrdin. Zhe turned to him suddenly from where zhe crouched under a bush as though someone had called zhem. Zheir gaze roamed over his shoulder, as though searching for someone.

  Slowly, he turned where zhe looked. The half-elf was leaning directly over him, reading his work.

  “Ack!” He jerked away, dropping his book, his glasses, and his pen.

  She smiled in amusement, her incisors sharp like fangs. That was not human or elf-like. He could see her clearly, though only her because the rest of the world blurred without his glasses.

  “What is it?” Krid stood from his harvest of various fungi.

  “Nothing! Just a bug in my ear or something.” He waved a dismissive hand and turned away from the woman-spirit with her narrow eyes and pointed teeth.

  “Am I an insect?”

  He gaped, hearing her voice in his head.

  Syrdin shifted zheir gaze to him and he hunkered over his book, reeling with shock and fear. He tried to appear calm, unmoved, absorbed in his notes. But the spirit could speak to him. His hunkering was pointless; he could barely read the page without his spectacles. He felt around on the ground.

  “Further to the left.”

  He plucked up the specs and resumed his work in sloppy scribbles, straining to see past the enchantment on them, but too afraid to dismiss the magical sight. The spirit bent further over his shoulder with interest. He ducked his head lower, unable to think of any question but why. Why does she watch? Why does she speak to me?

  “So this is how you see me. You see how the Luth flows,” she observed.

  His eyes grew wide. Syrdin jerked up from the bush zhe was under.

  “Rare indeed. Perhaps my vessel was right about you.”

  Vessel? Syrdin? He lifted his head, turning it slowly, as though surveying around him. Under that guise, he examined the spirit: from her pointed, half-human ears to her long, loose curls and lithe frame. Most of all, he could not look away from those blood-tinted eyes, comparable to Syrdin’s in shape and color. Those were the only part of her with color, as the rest of her spiritual form shivered like smoke,

  He had seen a drawing like her before. He had seen two. He thought so, anyway. Somewhere in the lorebooks of the Assandial library. Religion.

  Night Elves. Religion. Half-elf.

  The Twins. A shiver ran through him. No. It couldn’t be.

  If it was Segara, one daughter of Sabaed, they’d all have been killed just for the fun of it.

  It had to be the other. The lesser. Or perhaps another child of theirs, born after.

  “What is your name?” he whispered.

  “Ath-togail,” her voice echoed smoothly, resounding through him like a harmonious chord.

  Re-construction.

  Dismissing his magic sight, he penned her name in the vertical, elven script of the underworld next to his sketch of her. He glanced at Syrdin. Zheir eyes glittered with death. His skin went cold.

  Before he closed the book, he penned one last note:“All divided, reborn.” Those were words Syrdin had spoken in a dream. Re-construction. Divided and reborn. There was no room for coincidence. The minor goddess had remade herself. And he knew next to nothing about her.

  A hand landed on his shoulder from where the spirit had stood, and he jumped from the ground.

  Mell backed away. “Woah, deep in thought, were we?” She chuckled away her own surprise. “I wanted to check your progress on the grip.” Then, seeing his open book, she cocked her head. “And that’s no magic chart you’re working on.”

  Mell! If there was anyone who would know something about a half-fae god, it would be her. But with Syrdin glaring threats, he wasn’t sure how much he should say. “No, it’s one of the children of Sabaed.”

  “Oh, Segera or Roynn?”

  That was the name! “Roynn, I believe.”

  “The lesser–of division. Weren’t her people wiped out like 700 years ago?”

  “Yes.” That part, Fenn knew about. The tribe had succumbed to its own power. But that was where his knowledge ended. “What do you know about her?”

  “Almost nothing. It’s widely believed she died when her people did, consumed by Sabaed somehow.”

  Re-construction. She’d named herself for it. He stared at Syrdin, who leveled a splintery glare back. Reborn “I think historians were widely wrong.”.

  “Are you thinking Syrdin is on a revenge quest for her?” Mell whispered. “That could be extremely dangerous. And not just to us.”

  Fenn tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. “Is that what she was like?”

  “Are you really asking whether the goddess of division sewed dissension and discord across the nations?”

  Fenn nodded. “I think I am.”

  Behind Syrdin, Ath-togail’s hands landed on her hips, squaring off a challenge. “I did.”

  Chills prickled his skin, despite the stillness in the air.

  “Syrdin can’t be serving her. Zhe’d be using division magic, making things crumble into their parts.” Mell huffed. “Did you at least work on the staff?”

  Mell had a point. Whatever this daughter of Sabaed did want, it didn’t seem to be general mayhem and destruction. Or she could’ve been withholding it until the opportune moment, when she could destroy–gods! Panic flooded through him. He’d just fought to let Syrdin stay with them, and in doing so might've left them all vulnerable to obliteration at the hands of a god.

  But Syrdin needed him for something. To find the other gods, or something else. Fenn shook himself. Zhe didn’t mean them harm. Not the them, and he didn’t know to whom, if anyone. Zhe could’ve threatened him with Gale’s life–someone zhe hated–and zhe hadn’t. And he would’ve done almost anything to save her, too.

  Whatever the case, he needed to give Mell her new weapon. She’d find it very useful the next time she needed to protect herself. He flipped the page of his book back and at last answered Mell. “I completed it. Have you brought your staff?”

  —

  Krid pulled some of the bright fungus from the roots of the trees, blowing off dirt. He sniffed. “Edible?” So were goat hides, if you were determined enough. He certainly didn’t want to eat it. Fates send us some real food.

  “Oooo-ooo! It just melted on there! Fenn, that’s incredible. How did you make it do that?” Mell was more excited than a goat baying for her food as the manger was filled.

  “It was already written into the enchantment. I only had to read it. I’m certain one of your divinations would’ve told you the same.”

  “What does it do?” Mell waved her staff, now decorated with a clasp of shiny metal with a white, opal-like stone set into it. She struck a heavily grounded stance with the staff’s tip outstretched: a magic-wielder’s stance, Krid guessed.

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  “Erm,” He could hear the crunch of Fenn’s hair as he scratched under his glasses. “It stores a spell. Right now, it has a life-transfer spell. It takes life energy from one living target and transfers it to your chosen recipient.”

  He heard the staff clatter to the ground. “Isn’t that a necromancer spell? Life-steal or something?”

  “It’s written a little differently because it’s fae based, but it is the same result, yes.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Mell mumbled in wonder.

  “I’m a touch confused on how the spell got stored, though. Re-writing the enchantment would be rather too advanced for the capabilities of most users. Or, that’s true of modern users. I have no reason to believe the common elf used runes three thousand years ago. The Wood Elves don–”

  “Moonstone.” When Syrdin interrupted, Krid peered up from his growing pile of roots and mushrooms.

  “Moonstone?” Fenn asked.

  “Yes, a stone from the Underfae. It’s got its own magic energy that molds to whatever spell is channeled through it. It’s great for storing magic for later.”

  “How do you–wait, your people must have them.” Fenn said.

  “Yee-up.”

  “And you are only mentioning this now?” Mell snapped. “You couldn’t have said so sooner?”

  “I only just thought of it. Fenn asked me to be more ‘forthcoming’ if I’m going to stick around, and I’m being forthcoming. Moonstone. Spell memory. We have them. Good? Good.”

  Mell shook her head. “You could afford to be less difficult.”

  Krid frowned, and caught his expression mirrored by Gale across the camp. The book-heads were adapting quickly to Syrdin joining them. Zhe could learn anything from them.

  “How do I activate the spell?” Mell turned to Fenn, scooping up the abandoned staff.

  “Ah, you’ll want to channel your magic through the staff instead of your circlet. From there…”

  Krid ignored the rest, focused on sniffing out wild tubers. He kept half an eye out for trouble, for which he included the playful wisps, still appearing at random moments, and most especially Syrdin. After the long-winded ones had grown quiet again, he watched Syrdin tap Fenn’s elbow. Fenn jumped, but listened attentively as zhe said a few words and shrugged in Krid’s direction.

  Fenn sighed and said something back, scratching at the back of his head. Then it was Syrdin’s turn to huff. Fenn closed his arms over his chest, bending himself small, clearly feeling unsure. Syrdin passed him by, then lightly kicked the back of his calf with zheir heel. Fenn stumbled in Krid’s own direction. “Go on, ya spooked guinea fowl,” zheir words reached him.

  Fenn trudged with his head down and arms closed over his stomach towards Krid, kicking up yellow leaves over his toes. He stopped a pace or two away, silent.

  Krid broke the silence. “There’s not enough food here for more than one meal. We should eat and move on.” Whatever Syrdin had put Fenn up to, he didn’t want to hear it.

  “Krid, we need to talk.”

  “Then talk and gather.” He thrust a fistful of mushrooms into Fenn’s hands, and the Newt obediently began to gather more into his arms from Krid’s pile.

  “Krid, about the duel…”

  “Whatever more Syrdin has asked for, zhe can’t have it. I am fulfilling my part.”

  “Syrdin… well, I had already thought of doing this. Zhe just pushed me toward it sooner.”

  “Do what?” He raised up from the ground, adding a little white tuber to his armful of foraged goods.

  “Krid… when you released your lightning…”

  Krid looked away, shame prickling hot across his back. He had almost killed someone. It was the ultimate taboo of the duel, to cut short a Fate. Fenn’s sword toss had saved him as much as Syrdin. “I thought zhe was going to kill me and make it look like an accident.”

  “I know. You wouldn’t have done it otherwise. You aren’t the type.”

  He nodded. “Forgive me.”

  “I already have.”

  Leaves fell gently around them, soft and wafting. Morning sun had always brought clarity and peace with it. This eternal fae morning was no different.

  Krid finally turned his face to Fenn. With one arm, the Newt hugged a bunch of fungus, the other loose by his side, relaxed.

  “You truly trust Syrdin?” Krid asked.

  Fenn’s hand opened and closed, his eyes wandering away around the woods. “It’s not that I don’t think zhe is capable of murder and deceit so much as I think zhe would only turn to it if it was the only way.”

  “And you are okay with that?”

  “Not really. I would choose not to take a path if it brought another harm, but I think zhe can help us.”

  “My brother, that will aid zheir goals to the harm of another. Not us, maybe, but someone.”

  “I… don’t know. I’m certain now that zhe serves a rogue goddess. It is possible that the end of this will be a holy war, even if a small one. But then this goddess has little or no following. Or I don’t think she does. All I’ve ever heard–”

  “And what if Syrdin does start a war?” Krid cut in. “Or preaches ‘rogue’ gods who start wars? What if zhe would bring harm to our world? Or to this one?”

  His fists closed with finality. “I would stop zhem, if I could.”

  “But you are helping zhem.”

  “We are helping each other because I don’t believe zhe does mean harm.”

  “Anyone can cause harm, even if they don’t mean it. What do you think will happen when you return home with your ‘truth?’ When you bring back stories of greedy, petty gods?” Amidst his sentry duties and long marches, he’d caught enough of Fenn’s talk to know what he sought to do.

  “It will only give them back what should be theirs: their truth–and their magic, if I can recover it. Their very identity as a people. And they probably won’t accept it. No, it won’t change anything.”

  “Look at Gale, Fenn, your own betrothed. See her change? She cried over the deaths of monsters, and now she fights you? With magic your people do not know of. But they will know it again, if you tell them. They will want to know what they can do, and it will give them powers to harm, even if they don’t mean to.”

  “Or to heal! And build! And create! It’s only their right as fae. We should have magic! We should know who we are!” He spoke with unusual conviction, his voice rising. No, his fist had closed now over his chest; it was personal.

  Krid had seen that pose before. It all came back.

  A bright-haired elf, perpetually burned red in the face, had stood from his guest cot in the scouts’ tent. At the time, he’d been Krid’s senior in both body and mind–now only in years. Krid had confessed that his father had demanded that he come home and learn the forges. His choices: return or duel.

  Then Fenn had taken that same pose, his fist over his heart, gripping his shirt. “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to not meet the expectations of a father. They can be the most difficult people in our lives.”

  Krid had nodded. “I don’t know what to do.” He’d been so young. So unsure.

  Fenn had continued. His talk had seemed sage at the time. “Our people have a saying: ‘life is too long to do what you hate for the whole of it. Perhaps for you, life is too short, but nevertheless, you shouldn’t have to do what you hate, especially if it doesn’t suit you.”

  “If I defy him, he will consider it a challenge to his honor and demand a duel. And I will have no second.”

  The elf’s head had cocked, a clump of his loose, soft hairs flopping to the side. That had been such a foreign thing back then. “I think any of the soldiers in your company would second you. I would. You’re a talented fighter and principled–erm–honorable protector to your people. You belong here.”

  As the conversation continued, they had learned both of their fathers were leaders to their people, and both had strong ideas of what their children were to do. Fenn agreed that day to fight at Krid’s side. And it had changed Krid’s Fate. But Fenn… Fenn had only escaped his own. There had been no duel to finalize it. Krid could see, now, the same young longing in Fenn’s gaze that had haunted Krid then: to know who he was. No. To prove it.

  And all of Hethbarn could be riding on his journey. “And what will become of your nation, then? When they ‘know who they are?’ I told folk along the way that ‘I go to Etnfrandia,’ and they said the ‘eternal nation,’ the ‘unchanging elves.” Krid turned to Gale, snorting at her hair in twin braids tight against her head, her dress tied at her knees and sleeves torn off. She watched another wisp float in the boughs of a lower tree, this one misting in shades of copper and gold. “When they touch this world, they will change.”

  “They will grow, and they will become what they forgot.”

  Grow? Krid prickled. Even weeds grew. “A nation of war, then? Or have you forgotten the old wars? Even Gale is learning not to hesitate.”

  Fenn’s cheeks drew in. “But those were the humans’ wars.”

  “I would ask you not to lie to me, Fenn. Even I know what they were about.” Power. Magic. Jealousy. Fear. It took two to begin a fight.

  “But things are different now.”

  “Different how?”

  Fenn opened his mouth, but he had no more reply than the night had for the sunrise. The darkness he’d hidden in his mind had light on it now. He rubbed his chin, then his neck, sighing. “I know we are different, Krid, I just… I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “No, Fenn. You began this journey not knowing how it ends. Perhaps, next time you start a quest, you will consider not only the journey ahead, but the destination you will bring back with you.”

  “But Krid, this isn’t about a destination. It’s what I need to learn. I need to know what happened to the gods, and why we left our magic behind. I need to know how to wield it. That is what I will bring back.”

  “And in doing so, you may change everything.” Krid repeated plainly. Somehow, Fenn had missed the point.

  “They won’t listen to me, Krid. Not a single Etnfrandian ever did.”

  Krid glanced at Gale and raised a brow.

  “Except her,” he admitted in a frustrated grumble. “And I’d argue she still isn’t listening.”

  Krid heaved a sigh. Plain speech wasn’t working. “Have I told you what a ripple can do in the oasis?”

  “It can take what was a clear picture of a sky and make it confused. Yes, I do know. But it will also let you see into the water. Krid, this needs to be done.”

  “And I am helping you. But consider again who else you are helping, and what else it will do. Syrdin is learning everything that you are, and is taking it back to people of zheir own, whoever that may be. We aren’t one drop, we’re five, and one of them carries poison.”

  Fenn’s lips pressed together in a frown. “I don’t think so. It will be another book in another niche subject no one will care about save a few scholars. You’ll go home. Mell will get a promotion, and her order will thank me for my contributions to Faerie histories. Syrdin will ask for my help in something I won’t do—It’s me zhe is seeking, not the Fae, by the way. Gale… Gale will have to start over because of me. That is the biggest effect I’ll have in all my life.”

  Krid shook his head. One decision had changed his own life, and that changed the lives of hundreds of others: saving a dehydrated elf. Fenn didn’t understand. He was a field mouse playing with a sand cat in a desert too vast. He did not know his digging kept the sand soft and the cacti alive. He did not know that one tunnel could change the course of the rain’s runoff and, over time, the shape of the desert.

  He rested claws on Fenn’s shoulder. “I think differently. But we’ll see. I’ll make sure we live to see it.” He patted that shoulder. “For now, let’s make dinner.”

  Fenn turned to follow him into camp. “I came over here to make sure you knew I don’t resent you.”

  “I know.”

  “And that you don’t resent me.”

  Krid shook his head. “No, not you.” Only Syrdin. Fenn couldn't help it if his trusting nature was being manipulated.

  “Maybe you should also let Syrdin know you are glad you didn’t kill zhem. That you misunderstood.”

  Krid only grunted. He wasn’t sure, yet, if he would not have to kill zhem later, before the cat captured her mouse.