Val stirred in the privacy of her own room for the first time since they had set out from Southold. She rolled and adjusted the pillow beneath her head around her horns, and stared at the ceiling.

  She had pulled the simple mattress off the bed frame in the room, and rearranged the blankets and pillow on the floor with it. Her feet hung off the end, but the padded mattress was thin enough that it didn’t bother her, and the soft surface had been so inviting after hard floors or the earth. After a night on her feet, she barely remembered stripping her armor or if she had even eaten, it felt as if she had slept the moment the Vigilants led her to her quarters. Judging by the light in the window, it was mid-afternoon already. The worst of her fatigue had subsided, and she knew she would sleep no longer while it was light, so she sat up and studied her surroundings.

  The room was smaller than the grand room she had used on her first visit to the Vigil Chapel, composed of a bed, desk and a singular shuttered window. Her armor and clothes were haphazardly piled in the corner and on the desk where she had left them, having slept in her underclothes. Reluctantly she rose, and sniffed her shirt. It was clammy with sweat from their trek through the hot mountain heart and her exertions before that. She grabbed up her wolf pelt and wrapped it around her torso, and peeked her head out the door to study where she was.

  As she opened it quietly, the door bumped against something on the floor in the hall, and she bent to find a folded pile of fresh clothing. Quickly she pulled them within before anyone saw her and changed. They were in the Laon style - pleated wide legged pants tied at the middle, a waist belt and hanging loin cloth layered over that, and a sleeveless top that was open at the back with long ties she drew around her back and secured again at the front. Embroidered geometric designs she did not recognize decorated the hems. Finally, she secured the wolf pelt across her shoulders to protect against the chill of stone chapel buildings. Missing the bath she had gotten last time, she was satisfied just to be wearing something clean, and she carefully opened the door again in case it would squeak.

  The central hall of the guest wing was empty. The doors down its length were shut, although two had piles of clean clothing out the front like her own had, letting her guess where Bastian and Elias had ended up. The room down the end, that Dorius had used before, was shut, with no pile there. She scratched the back of her neck, feeling for how neat her plaits were still and satisfied she couldn’t feel too many stray hairs, wandered out and up the hall barefoot to Dorius’ likely door.

  She hesitated as she stood before the solemn wood door, worried she might have the wrong one or that he would be sleeping still. The gentle hum of the mountain air hung at the edge of her hearing, the feeling of the magic was throughout her body now she’d spent days becoming more adjusted to it. When she did not focus on it, it blended into the periphery of her senses now, easy to ignore. But when she concentrated on it, she had become aware of how the tune it sang modulated, shifted, vibrated. At first, it had seemed random, influenced by the whims of the world like the coming and going of a breeze. But with time, she had begun to notice a feel to it, just like the wind, every shift had an origin and a cause that could be understood if she knew how to interpret what she felt in the currents. All living things contributed to the play of the music, even plants beneath her feet. Physical inorganic objects she could not see or pass through became as the void in this web. Something about the feeling now as she stood by the door, an intuitive sense for the interplaying web of harmonics around her, told her that there was a person beyond this door, and they were not in a place where she remembered the bed being at the far end.

  She gave a tentative knock, and then let herself in without waiting for a reply.

  Dorius was at the desk, an absurd pile of books around him, some half open, some stacked, and even several scattered on the floor. His head was in his hands, hunched over the tome he was reading. He had changed to clean clothes, but the front of his robes hung open and were loosely belted, revealing his undergarments and sparse silver chest hairs.

  Val resisted a sniff of disapproval, his expression too distracted for her to want to joke with him, and quietly began to pick up the books that had ended up on the floor, carefully closing them after feeling how fragile some of their spines were.

  “Did you sleep?” she asked.

  Dorius jumped in his seat. Blinking foggy eyes he looked up at her, and gasped in a panic when he saw her moving the books. “No, leave them where I had them. Which did you close already?”

  Val surrendered the volumes she had already touched back to him, and he desperately leafed through the pages searching for the sections he had left them open in. “They feel old, be careful,” she warned.

  “The Vigil makes copies. They let me use these ones,” he explained, checking the title of one book and then flipping it open to the section he had been working in again. Val raised her hands in surrender and backed off from his desperate sorting.

  “You’ve been up then?” she surmised, sitting on his bed behind him. The covers had been moved, but it looked barely used.

  “I could not sleep.”

  “Where did you get the books from then?”

  “I had a Vigilant take me to their libraries. The acolytes are all scribes primarily, they led me down to their cellars - huge halls unlike anything I have ever seen. Some of it is their own documentation, hand written over and over again to preserve it. Others are copies of books they collect and preserve. It all makes its way to the Vigil Chapel from across the Pentarchy eventually.” The admiration in his voice was clear, Val wondered just how extensive the library had been.

  “What are you reading?” she asked.

  “Histories of the Dragoness, before and after she was divine, or what I can find.”

  Val was silent, waiting for him to offer his thoughts at his own pace as he reorganized the work she had disturbed.

  Finally, “We need to make haste, and go into the valley to find her. Just you and I.”

  Val leaned forward, elbows on her knees, at the sudden announcement, watching him carefully, “Are you sure?” A million thoughts raced in her mind, but her loyalty came first.

  Dorius seemed to visibly relax when she did not question him, and he met her own eyes with his. They were red and wet. “I can’t risk anyone else. I don’t want to be that kind of person.”

  “That might not be a choice you will always be able to make?” she cautioned.

  He turned, and said quietly, “I know. But I’d like to make it when I can.” He looked exhausted, how he was still awake she would never know. She had only admiration and respect for this slim man’s iron will and its fragile hold over his body.

  Val rose, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders bringing him into a hug, not as a friend or prince, but as her brother. He buried his face into her robes, grasping her with surprisingly desperate hands.

  “You’re too soft. Elias and your father raising you away from your family was a mistake,” she commented softly.

  “I will never be like them,” he spat into her belly resolutely, face hidden still.

  “I know.”

  She comforted him for a moment longer, till he drew back and she let him go, sitting again to wait. He rubbed tired eyes one handed, seeming so much younger than their three year age gap, and looked despondently at his books.

  With a breath shakier than she expected she admitted, “Bastian will not be happy.”

  Dorius twisted the ring on his smallest finger on his right hand, spinning the thick band of the signet over his knuckle, “I know.” Something about his mood and manner seemed to strengthen, and he added, “We’d best sneak out and not let him know.”

  Val signed, and rubbed her own face in her hands, “He’ll figure it out. Neither of us can hide much from him. Why so soon?”

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  “I am fearful Sylus already knows we are here. He knew so much about us when we arrived. Whatever his plans, he is four steps ahead and we are desperately catching up. Something is happening here, far more significant than what the Pentarch sent us for, and I will know it. But…” he gestured to the books he had been studying, “There is so much here the Vigilants have hoarded while we forgot. In hours I have learnt more of our histories than I could learn spending weeks in the libraries of academics. So much was apparently lost during the Unrest, and for some reason the Vigilants kept it all and never shared it again after.”

  “Maybe no one ever asked? They shared it with you,” offered Val.

  “I am beginning to believe their insistence on the Weave. Did you know they mentioned the Pilgrim’s token when I asked to see their libraries? Said I was due answers to my questions like all pilgrims. I bought it on a whim, in the off chance it would be useful. It was picked up by my father before I was even born and stashed away like a squirrel's hoard. And here I am, I don’t even know where it went… and they knew. It's just like,” he gestured incredulously with his hands, “puzzle pieces falling into place.”

  Val looked sideways uncomfortable, “I’ve been trying not to think too hard about it,” she admitted.

  Dorius slumped back on his chair, “I would give my whole estate for these books and the time to read them.” He stared at the ceiling.

  “I am sure we can come back,” reassured Val, rising again and beginning to look about his room, “Did they leave you an over-robe?”

  Dorius turned back to read, gesturing one handed at the piles of fabric scattered on the far side of the bed and floor, “There might have been something…”

  Val cleared her throat with a disappointed grunt as she sifted through the pile, he had mixed the clean clothes with his own filthy ones. There was a thicker over robe in the mix, and she pulled it free and shook it back into shape, before returning to deposit it around Dorius’ shoulders, patting his shoulders warmly as she said, “Don’t get cold.”

  Without turning to look at her, he raised one hand over his shoulder and placed it on hers, and muttered softly, “I am glad… it was not you. I will regret for the rest of my life the relief I felt when I saw one horn was broken.”

  Val hummed, and withdrew her hand, “I hope not.”

  “Where were you anyway?”

  Val froze, and was glad he was not looking at her when she was so suddenly aware of her face turning beet red. Her silence must have piqued his curiosity, and Dorius turned, his eyebrows raising as he saw her staring stiffly back at him and failing to hide her discomfort. Like a rabbit blinded by torch light she blinked, and as the corner of Dorius’ mouth twitched into a sly grin the spell on her was broken and she rushed for the door.

  “I am going to find some lunch,” she announced, ducking her head to hide her eyes.

  “Who was it?” called Dorius after her, his amused tone only deepening her blush. She shut the door and hoped she could pretend she had not heard him.

  She leaned against the door, taking a deep breath to wrestle back some composure. Everything about that night was so far from anything she ever wanted to have to explain to Dorius, she could only desperately hope he would never bring it up again. Down the hall, one door no longer had a pile of clothes in front of it anymore. She drew another breath, and pushed away from the door to find a Laon guard to press into leading her to food and the Vigilants.

  —

  Her Laon guide gestured up the ladder with a nod of his horns. Val skeptically looked at the opening at the top of the ladder, unsure if she would fit.

  “Can they come down instead?” she asked.

  The Laon shook his head, and began to climb first. He did realize she was bigger than him?

  Val huffed, and climbed after. As she reached the access hole, she felt hands reach down to help guide her horns through the opening. Working one arm at a time the widest part of her shoulders just squeezed through, and then she hauled her legs and torso through after.

  “My apologies, we’d come down if we could,” came a small voice.

  Val looked around the tower room. There were two beds assembled, a small table, and a wood feed stove with fuel. Otherwise the space was austere, with one exception. At one end of the room a great device of wooden pegs and pedals sat, with an ornate bench for its controller. The device and bench were gilded and decorated with rich fabrics, but the mechanisms behind - an intricate network of wires that rose up the tower out of sight - were open for easy access and maintenance.

  There were two Vigilants. One was propped up in their bed who had spoken, and the other hunched over the table working on a small device in the candle light who seemed intent on busily ignoring their visitors.

  The Laon offered Val a hand to help her stand, but she ignored it and remained sitting over the ladder access.

  The Vigilant in the bed appeared sickly, their skin was pale and had a thin sheen of sweat. As he adjusted his position, Val spied his hands were twisted at the wrist, and fingers only partially mobile. The disability did not appear to affect his movement, and he grasped his blanket dexterously with the control he did have, drawing it down his lap a little to sit straighter.

  “Bryer let us know we would have a curious guest,” said the sickly Vigilant. Bryer, Val had learnt, was the gender-less Vigilant who had approached them outside the wall and seemed to act as a second to the Prime, “They said you wished to hear how the bells work our magic?”

  The Vigilant at the table gave a quick disapproving huff, and shot Val a glance before continuing to work at their task. The sickly Vigilant gave a weak apologetic smile, seemingly aware of their companion's antisocial behavior.

  Val hummed slightly, unsure how to begin explaining herself or ask her questions. The Laon guard was already silently standing to one side, a familiar blank expression on his face, so she doubted he would make much introduction for her. “I was told you might be able to teach me a little? So I might learn to control my own magic.”

  “Learn from your own, Horn-Fae,” snapped the Vigilant at the table, not looking up from his work.

  “I am told they have none who can teach me,” she replied matter-of-factly.

  The Vigilant at the table slapped down one of his tools, “Tough luck.”

  “What my friend means to say is that we may not be of much help to you, but I can explain what I know,” explained the sickly Vigilant, “Will you help me to the keyboard?”

  Val stood, her head hunched, and hovered for a moment over the sickly Vigilant, “How?”

  The Vigilant held out his arms, “You have my permission to lift me, it will be quickest.”

  Val kneeled, and gathered his torso in her arms. In turn he wrapped his arms around the back of her neck. He was waifish in her arms, and she could hear his breath rattle wet in his lungs so close to her. She stood gently, bringing his blanket with him and set him on the bench in front of the device with the many wooden pegs.

  He settled his balance, and adjusted his position on the bench. “What do you already know?”

  “Almost nothing, except what I have picked up on instinct. I can hear it around me almost constantly, these sounds and melodies, and sometimes a feeling in my skin or body. And I can feel it inside of me, waiting for my call. I’ve been able to channel fire from my palm, but I’ve also been able to start it away from my body as a child.”

  “Can you control a fire you did not start? Can you give it complex shape, or can you just start and sustain the flame?”

  Val blinked, and crouched next to the frail Vigilant so she wouldn’t have to hunch, “I’ve never tried?”

  “What is called magic, is little more than the pure energy of existence. It is intrinsic to all things living, and nonliving, although it has a distinct nature for each. What you hear around you is the chorus of the living. Being deaf to it does not exempt you from this network, all life is a part of it. It is the more common skill to hear and manipulate the living energies, and the one I developed as I was changed. Once, when we were greater, mastery of this energy was as inate as breathing and every one of us understood it - hearing the symphony of life around us was as natural as hearing the call of birds and rustle of leaves. We used it to modulate the energies within our own bodies to shift our shape at will - to grow wings and fly, or claws and hooves and run the plains with the bodies of wolves or deer. Others still had mastery over it in other bodies - quickening healing, or accelerating rot - although those powers were rare even by the time of the Unrest.”

  Val was aware the Vigilant working with tools had stilled, and was listening from the desk.

  “The ability to hear and manipulate the non-living was rarer, and this was the precious skill our nobles bred themselves so fastidiously for, once. We are living, so we are a part of the previous energy, and understanding it is natural to us. The non-living is a foreign energy, and the spectrum you are born with cannot be changed, nor access to others taught. Only mastery of the intrinsic gifts can be attained, and then greatly limited by what you are born able to do. The non-living encompasses stone, air, fire and water, and places where their spectrums transition or can be combined if the user has more than one gift.”

  The Vigilant reached out and picked up a small bell from on top of the keyboard, pinning the handle between their fingers where their mobility allowed it.

  “And while I will try to explain what I can, this is why I can only help you a little. I can only hear and manipulate the living wavelengths, and even then I must use music to help me channel what I intend. I have only book knowledge to help you with your more advanced gifts.”

  “Whatever you can teach is still more than I know now,” said Val meekly and slightly overwhelmed.