The Tears of Kas̆dael

“Stop dawdling!” With an exasperated sigh, Tsia spun on her heel to stare back at her temporary companion. “I want to check my mother’s place out, and we don’t have much time.”

“Sorry.” With a quick jog, the young man caught up with her, though his gaze immediately began to wander back to the marketplace. “It just so…normal.” His voice choked up with emotion, and his eyelids fluttered rapidly.

Is he going to cry? Tsia glanced around the marketplace impatiently but saw nothing worth crying over. “I guess so? My father’s is much bigger, but…”

Erin shook his head. “You don’t understand. It’s the people that are normal. I mean, I know they aren’t actually human, but they look it. Sure, half the crowd would be an NBA superstar, but other than the height, they look…normal.”

Tsia frowned. “And the Djinn don’t?”

“Well, a lot of them did,” he admitted. “Maybe even most, but not the ones I was around. Most of the soldiers were high enough leveled to have the whole red skin and horns deal going on. And, yeah, they were pretty nice to me, but it was hard to feel comfortable around them. I may not be much of a Catholic these days, but they looked like literal devils, you know?”

“I don’t,” she replied coldly. “If there are any devils here, I’ve certainly never heard of them. The Djinn are a noble race and don’t deserve to be looked down on.”

“I don’t dislike them,” he protested. “I just…” He fumbled for a moment, unable to explain how he was feeling, and found a better example. “Devils for us are like your Gemlirians, or maybe even those Atrometos creatures I’ve heard mentioned once or twice. You wouldn’t feel comfortable living with them, would you?”

“Well,” Tsia hesitated as she pondered her words. While she took some offense to his feelings about the Djinn on her mother’s behalf, he had a point. She wouldn’t feel comfortable living in a village of Gemlirians, even if they were the nicest, most devoted followers of Selene in the world. She was sure she’d adjust eventually, but it would be tough at first.

“Besides,” he continued, “Mostly I'm just homesick. Jasper seems to love it here, but I’d go home in a heartbeat if I had the chance. Sure everyone’s a little tall here, but if I squint real hard, I can almost imagine I’m on vacation in some Middle Eastern bazaar. It’s not quite like home, but it’s the closest I’ve been in a long time.”

Her features softened as he hit on a feeling she was all too familiar with. “I guess I understand that,” she finally allowed. “But you know the Djinn are good people, right?”

“I know,” he agreed. “Honestly, I doubt an alien would be treated half as nicely back home as they treated me. I’m absolutely grateful for all they did, but…” he trailed off, not wanting to repeat the sentiments that even he felt guilty for.

“Well, just come on, then,” Tsia concluded lamely. “I don’t know how long Jasper and Ihra will be in the sanctum, but I don’t want to keep them waiting.” Not waiting for his reply, she spun on her heels and took a brisk pace through the marketplace. He caught up a second later, half-jogging to keep up with her pace.

“So where are we going exactly? You said your mother used to live here?”

“She did. Sometimes I did too.”

“But I thought you were some sort of princess,” he questioned. “Didn’t your mother live with your father?”

A trickle of irritation seeped through her veins, but she brushed it aside. It wasn’t like he knew anything of her family situation. “My father is the king of this province,” she replied softly, not wanting to gather attention from the crowd around them. It was extremely unlikely that anyone would recognize her, and equally unlikely that they would believe their princess was wandering around the market unattended, but there were a few people in the city who would know who she was. Like the city lord. And Tsia wasn’t sure how he’d react to her presence, not after her mother’s failed expedition to Als̆arratu. “My mother was never married to my father, though.”

“Oh, my mom never married my dad either,” the scout replied. “But at least you knew your dad, right?”

“You didn’t know him?”

“Nope, never met him. Honestly, my mother didn’t even know him.” Time passed as he quickly told her the story of the St. Patrick’s Day parade, and Tsia continued to pepper him with questions, preferring to keep the scout’s focus on him rather than her.

But their conversation ground to a halt when they finally reached their destination. The manor was everything Tsia remembered. The pure ivory wood. The graceful, swooping arches, curved spires, elegant parapets. This time it was her eyes that grew a little foggy. This was supposed to be my home. Me and mom. It’s not fair.

Now, she wasn’t even sure where Aphora had gone. Somewhere to the west, deep in territory that most elves considered certain death. And her only hope of seeing her again was trusting in her mother’s vague words that Jasper’s path would intersect with hers one day.

Blinking away the tears that threatened to fall, Tsia approached the main entrance. She had hoped the seamless ivory walls would part for her, but she wasn’t exactly surprised when they failed to open. Though the elves had been forced to abandon it for the time, she knew her mother would have placed protective seals to preserve the space in case they returned. And, fortunately, she knew another way to enter. Hopefully, she didn’t seal this one up.

Spinning around, she headed down the street in the opposite direction of the manor, leaving Erin to follow her.

Awed by the elven manor in front of him, it took the scout a second to register she’d left, and he was forced to break into a jog. “Wait, where the hell are you going,” he demanded as he caught up to her. “Don’t tell me we walked for an hour just to look at the outside.”

“The doors wouldn’t open, so we’ll have to go around,” she explained.

He cast a confused glance over his shoulder at the seamless ivory wall behind them. “What door?”

“The wall opens up,” she explained. “But mother must have sealed it when she left. Fortunately, there’s another way in, but if I know her, there might be a bit of danger.”

She headed about three hundred feet down the street, before turning into a small alleyway that ran between two manors. Thick edges lined both sides of the alley, and, from the street corner, it looked like the alley continued in a straight line for about a hundred feet before dead-ending into another avenue. But Tsia knew better.

She came to a stop about a third of the way down the street and began pushing into the hedges. The thick brush resisted her stoutly, and the sharp needles even managed to draw a few pricks of blood, but she continued, knowing what lay behind them.

“You could ask me to help, you know?” As Erin spoke behind her, the hedges resisting her efforts began to bend out of her way, twisting their trunks aside until they were nearly perpendicular to the ground and revealing the small space behind them.

“Didn’t even think about it,” she admitted, “but thanks.” With Erin’s magic shoving the hedges aside, it was easy enough to pick through the tangled mess of trunks and reach the hidden passage to her mother’s home.

A small, square trapdoor rose slightly above the ground. There was no handle on the door and the sides were sealed so tightly against each other that it was impossible to budge it, but Tsia knew the key to opening it. Drawing a dagger from her pouch, she made a small knick on her forearm and allowed a few drops of blood to spatter on the door. As the blood dripped down, the metal of the door contracted slightly, followed by a loud click. She shoved down on the door, and it followed her hand as she let go, revealing a narrow set of stairs descending into the ground.

Erin peered around her shoulder at the dark shaft, and his features tightened. “That looks kind of…narrow.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll fit.” Her words did little to change his glum expression, and she raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re claustrophobic.”

“I’m not afraid of tight places,” he protested. “I just prefer to be in places where it’s possible to have my right and my left arm at my side.”

“You don’t have to come,” she said, as she took a step down into the tunnel, “but either way, please release the hedges. We don’t want people knowing about this place.”

“Right.” With a wave of his hand, the scout guided the hedges back into place before, reluctantly, following her into the darkness.

The initial tight squeeze of the passage continued for perhaps fifty feet. Once they had ducked below the foundation of the adjoining manor, the steep pitch leveled off, and the passage widened into a tunnel large enough for three or four to journey together. As her feet touched the floor, green orbs of light suspended from the wall sprang to life, lighting the tunnel in their eldritch glow.

Thus far, everything was how Tsia remembered. The problem was, she’d been twelve the last time Aphora had taken her through the passage. She knew there were traps, but she couldn’t remember where or what. “Just stay behind me,” she warned the scout, “and step where I step.”

Ignoring her, the scout stepped up beside her and squatted down. “Let me guess, this tunnel is trapped.”

“It is,” she agreed, “and I don’t remember all of them.”

“I might be able to help. I am a scout, after all.”

“But you don’t have the class,” she pointed out.

“Well, no,” Erin admitted, “I don’t have any special skills to detect traps, but they did train us to look for them. Like the one right over there.” He pointed to the left side of the tunnel, where a small statue of a satyr was illuminated in the green light of the orbs.

Tsia strained her eyes but couldn’t find what he’d identified. “The statue?”

“No, look for the glint.”

She searched again, and this time she noticed a faint metallic gleam near the statue’s base. A tripwire. “Alright, maybe you can help,” she agreed, “but I doubt most of my mother’s traps will be so easy.”

Her words proved prescient. With adrenaline running high and nerves on edge, it was hard to say exactly how long they spent creeping down the dark tunnel, but it felt like an eternity.

Erin spotted a few more traps, allowing them to carefully inch their way around, above, or through the danger, but he missed a few too. The first trap he missed was a tiny crystal shard implanted in the ground. When their shadow passed over the shard, it cut off the light from the eldritch orbs, and the trap was triggered.

A wall of fire washed toward Tsia, but she was faster. Casting the wind-blade she’d been holding, she split the fire in two, sending it harmlessly past them.

It wasn’t the only trap he missed, and by the time they reached the midpoint of the tunnel, Tsia realized the task was pointless. Erin was far better at spotting the traps than she was, but he was no match for her mother’s cunning.

Pausing, she stood up and shook her arms out, feeling the cramps in her legs from all the crawling. Erin rose beside her and cast her questioning glance. “Are you giving up?”

“No, just changing plans,” she replied. “You did great, but we are still triggering traps and we’re running low on time. So I think the answer is to just stop trying.”

“Uh, what?”

“I’m going to cast my cyclone shield and we’re going to run,” she replied. “We’ve got, what, thirty feet to go?” Hopefully, my mana will outlast whatever traps are left.”

“Are you sure your shield will hold,” he asked skeptically.

“It will hold,” she replied, with a bit more confidence than she actually felt. Drawing on her essence, she allowed the cyclone to whip around her, the swirling winds rising to tempest speeds as a pale orb sprung into place. Grabbing the scout’s hand, she dragged him beneath the protection of the shield and took off running. Fire, blades, and blinding light bombarded them, but she didn’t slow down. With every hit against her barrier, she felt her essence sapped away, but she didn’t dare to hesitate. Dragging the scout behind her, she leapt the last few feet and flung herself across the threshold of the chamber beyond.

They landed in a heap together, her beating so wildly in her chest it felt like it would burst out of her ribcage, but nothing but silence greeted them. Shoving Erin off of her, she sat up and stared with satisfaction at the small foyer they were sitting in. She’d made it inside the manor. All she needed now was to see if her mother had left her something.