Making Choices

  Skye stared at his wrists as he turned them. The skin where the cuffs had been was pale and smooth, bare of hair. Insect bites, faint scratches, and discolored bruises mottled every inch of his body, making him look like ragged cloth worn thin from too many washes. The deeper scars had faded to being mere mementos, reminders of what he’d lived through. Only the echoes of tiny tibias marching across his skin remained.

  A dull ache lingered around his shoulders from which he’d hung suspended for days. When he flexed them, a sharp twinge seared down his back, and he winced. Touching the back of his head, he barely felt the scar hiding under his hair.

  Something like this had happened before, back when he’d first awoken in Troqua in this very house. Doctor Stenser had credited his miraculous recovery to a fantastical balm called… something’s panacea, a rare and powerful medicine with almost mythic properties. But Skye had exhausted the last smidgen of it back then. Unless…

  Unless he’d never existed, and so had never used it.

  Dr. Stenser had sacrificed his irreplaceable cream for Skye’s sake twice now. And Skye had no idea how he’d ever repay such kindness.

  He sighed, glancing toward the doctor, who stood chatting with Ficar near the window at the end of the dining hall. Skye and Lyonel sat by the table while Mrs. Jella, Rierana, and Mirio bustled around the kitchen, ferrying pots and vegetables as they prepared a meal. As Mirio squeezed a fat purple lime into a bowl, it burst in his hand, splattering slime all over his face, eliciting laughs from the ladies.

  After weeks of living alone, Skye was back with the Medhars at last, sitting at their table with Lyonel by his side. He’d dreamed of this moment for weeks. And yet… he couldn’t bring himself to smile.

  His bell swayed at the edge of his vision. Teasing. Threatening to chime at any second. After days of sleep, the trepidation had piled high as a mountain in his mind.

  He didn’t dare imagine what would happen if it rang. How everyone would recoil in horror, how the doctor would drive him out, how the wardens would drag him back to that dark cell with the manacles and skeletons and the swarms of insects crawling and stinging and biting, eating his flesh bit by bit while he begged—

  “I found it!” Lyonel exclaimed.

  Skye startled, releasing the edge of the table. His knuckles had turned white.

  Lyonel pointed at a page in the large book open in his lap, too entranced to notice Skye’s reaction. The illustration showed a group of armed channelers flanking a bearded giant of a man.

  “This is the legendary Alisnor Nalin! He was the leader of the greatest expedition ever to leave Troqua!” Lyonel’s honey-brown eyes gleamed with excitement. “He was no ordinary firedancer tossing sparks or burning bushes with his breath. He was a lavashaper! Commanding magma from the earth and melting the ground beneath his foes!”

  He pointed to the immense hammer slung across the giant’s shoulder. Its head was black, lacerated with glowing red veins.

  “This,” Lyonel said, visibly shaking, “is the biggest magmacon ever discovered. Look how gigantic it is. He could wreck a monster just by swinging it!”

  Lyonel flipped through the pages, reading aloud with mounting zeal. “Over three thousand supporters joined his expedition. Nearly a third were channelers: firedancers, windriders, tidebreakers, stonemasons, metalsmiths, greenfingers, animators, even some luminaries and tenebraries! They left on Aeiouday, the fifteenth of Trune, 665 AA, aiming for Kastrala, then onward to Ferrugh.”

  He looked up at Skye, eyes wide with a mixture of awe and dread. “That was exactly one hundred and fifty years ago today.”

  Skye leaned forward, staring at the sketches. “Did they make it?”

  “Well, the official reports state they failed,” Lyonel replied with a shrug.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Skye slumped back in his chair, disappointed. He’d hoped to hear a story about a great adventurer reaching their goal. That was his dream after all.

  “But,” Lyonel added quickly, catching Skye’s attention again, “those reports came from the duke at the time. And although expeditions were legal, he—like every duke—was against them, arguing they’d all die for nothing. That’s because he feared they’d uncover his secret road out of the city, and ruin his monopoly on trade.”

  Skye raised his eyebrows. “So, you think the reports were lying? You believe they reached Kastrala?”

  Lyonel’s face split with a grin. He spoke fast, almost shouting, his entire body trembling with excitement, silky brown hair bouncing. “Among the thousands of teams that have attempted to leave Troqua, if anyone had any chance to succeed, it had to be them!”

  Skye imagined Alisnor and his companions climbing the Avyhandouse Mountains to gaze at the world beyond, at cities and farms sprawling for miles, the ocean stretching into the horizon.

  Lyonel broke his reverie. “I want to show you another one.” He flipped to the end of the book then stabbed his gloved finger at a new drawing. It showed a caravan of floating wagons laden with cargo. Around and atop the carriages stood tens of men and women, armed and armored.

  Skye imagined what it’d be like to stand among them, preparing to leave this vast cave behind to finally see the world.

  “They were the last campaign to leave Troqua which took place—you won’t believe this!—only fifty years ago,” Lyonel said. “They were three hundred and thirty strong, all channelers, and they were led by Nourous Alektom.”

  He pointed at the handsome blond man at the forefront of the caravan, then gave a modest shrug. “Actually, Nourous’s great-grandson, Nakais, is my friend. I can introduce you if you want.”

  The bell, momentarily forgotten, returned to the forefront of Skye’s thoughts like a sudden flash of lightning. He shut his eyes, hoping to forget about it a little longer, finding distraction in the thousands of little feet crawling across his skin.

  Lyonel and Nakais’s illogical friendship was a testimony to the good his absence could bring. Perhaps he shouldn’t have left that dungeon. No one could predict the terrible things he’d bring about now that he was free again.

  Lyonel closed his book and set it on the table. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

  Taking off his gloves, he started picking at the little warts on his hands. Back in the day, he often resorted to scratching before a fight with Nakais’s gang or whenever they snuck into places they weren’t supposed to be. The act was supposed to be calming, but it only made him more anxious. He hated the habit; it left ugly red marks, spread the warts, and drew constant scoldings from Dray and Dr. Stenser. Seeing him do it now, right in front of everyone, let Skye know something was wrong.

  “What’re you apologizing for?” Skye asked. “Why’d you close the book?”

  “I was boring you, blathering about useless history.” He plastered a smile on his face, but it melted away quickly.

  Lyonel used to make such diffident remarks back when Skye awoke from his coma. But over time, with encouragement from him and Rierana, the habit had faded. Lyonel was wrong; his stories were the only thing that helped Skye forget his dungeon. Yet Skye couldn’t bring himself to admit it.

  His curse hadn’t only ruined his life, but his friends’ as well. Even now, the bell danced next to Lyonel’s head, its clapper swinging so close to its lip as if to warn: ‘Don’t even think about making a change. I can take you out of this world in an instant.’

  The guilt was unbearable. It boiled in Skye’s guts until he couldn’t take it anymore. He snatched the book.

  “I want to borrow this,” he said, flipping through the pages until he found a map of the region around Troqua, marked with the projected paths each expedition might have taken. He wished there were more recent routes, but nowadays everyone agreed that such campaigns were a waste.

  Lyonel’s eyes lit up. “You like history too?”

  “I’m interested in the expeditions,” Skye said honestly. “I’ve read a lot of travel books, but none had illustrations this detailed.”

  “S-sure! You can have it!” Lyonel beamed. “I work at a bookstore; I can get you more books like this if you want. W-we can even read them together!”

  Skye opened his mouth to agree, but the words died on his tongue. That was a promise he couldn’t keep.

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to,” he said instead.

  “Oh. Th-that’s alright,” Lyonel replied, deflating as he looked away.

  Skye felt like the most selfish sack of coal in all of Troqua.

  With Dray working or training most days, Lyonel often complained about how lonely he felt, how hard it was juggling study and work. And yet, Skye had abandoned him to go hunt gems in the Deeps.

  Back in the dungeon, Redeyes had told Skye he deserved the curse, and now, he was beginning to understand why. He was weak, useless, nothing but a burden to those around him. He couldn’t even thank them properly. The world would’ve been better off had he been born as a worm.

  “Wardens aren’t bad people,” Lyonel said suddenly. “But some are just… stupid.”

  Skye flinched. He realized he was gripping the book so tightly, his fingers had torn the corner of a page. Thankfully, Lyonel didn’t notice.

  “You don’t have to be scared of Ficar or Mirio,” Lyonel continued, “they’ve been helping me a lot the past few days. I’m sure they’d help you too.”

  Skye frowned. Why would Lyonel need help from them with Dray around?

  An odd scene from the library surfaced into memory, foggy and warped, as though it hid behind opaque glass. He remembered someone pulling him out of the dungeon. A warden wearing a sword-pen insignia. One who looked and sounded a lot like… Dray.

  Mrs. Jella came, cradling her belly with one hand and balancing a steaming plate of rice with the other. “The place is lively today,” she said warmly. “We’re lucky to have so many guests.”

  A moment later, Rierana and Mirio followed, carrying dishes filled with fragrant food.

  “Dinner is ready!” Jella announced.