“Aye, Captain.” Kintra nodded.
Alōs faced the distant beach on the main island, where gentle waves hit the shore in a rhythmic crash. He took a deep breath in, tasting the sweet air. His gifts had replenished quickly once he’d entered his homeland; his muscles felt stronger, his mind sharper. The sea was everywhere, and his body vibrated with the sensation.
With a final resolve and a prickling of ice armor running over his skin, Alōs grasped the banister and swung himself over the rail, dropping down. He stopped right above the water, his magic flowing out of him like a waterfall, pushing against the gentle waves beneath his feet. Alōs hovered in midair.
Forward, he thought, which was all it took for him to float away from his ship and toward his old home.
He approached a small, secluded beach; his boots crunched against the sand as he stepped onto land.
Alōs paused, staring at the dark awaiting jungle that spilled out along the perimeter. He had not been on these shores in a very long time.
But he had taken on more frightening things than this, so with sure footing he continued forward.
The fresh scent of night and moss greeted him as he entered the forest. The air cooled as the buzz of bramble beetles and light hoppers filled the night’s silence. Twilight blooms glowed purple and blue, painting the trunks of trees in an array of colors, lighting his way. Not that Alōs needed light. He knew these woods intimately, and no amount of time away would have had him forgetting the paths he had taken many times as a boy.
Alōs soon stepped from the wild tangle of trees onto a dirt road. A large ivy-covered wall stood between him and the capital city on the other side. Alōs stared at the stone. As a child, he had climbed those vines before falling and skinning his knees. But he had not cried. Alōs would learn later the amount of pain required for him to shed tears.
Turning left, Alōs remained in the shadows on the fringe of the road, ignoring the spots of light cast by the lanterns along the wall to his right. He took note of how their normally orange flames had been switched to ones that glowed silver.
Esrom was in mourning.
Yet despite knowing why, Alōs kept his emotions placid.
He’d already had his time to mourn the dead many years prior.
No one met him as he made his way down the path, and eventually he stopped in front of a wooden door that he knew hid behind dangling vines. Parting them, Alōs gave two, then three knocks.
The door swung open with a rusty creak, revealing Ixō on the other side. The High Surb held a torch that threw flickering light across his metallic brow tattoo. His glowing turquoise eyes were filled with pain beneath his hood.
“They’re gone,” said Ixō in greeting. “Tallōs left us by the time I returned. Your parents are now together again in the Fade.”
The words settled atop Alōs’s skin like hot ash from a pyre.
They’re gone.
He dared not speak.
Ixō waited, no doubt hoping Alōs would reveal grief, some sliver of emotion.
He did not.
With a frown, Ixō turned and led them down into a cool tunnel, one that eventually changed to limestone and then marble walls.
Panic shot through Alōs as the fragrance of jasmine reached him and the familiar soft trickling of meditation pools echoed down the passageway like a warning. They were about to enter the palace.
Ixō pushed aside hanging vines, revealing a courtyard.
Glowing ponds filled the circular space with light. Moonlight lilies bloomed with purple buds on the water’s surface as firebugs floated through the space like pollen.
The courtyard sat empty, quiet, as Ixō took hurried steps to cross through.
Alōs drank in the spiral columns lining their walk, up to the vaulted stained glass ceilings, a majestic scene of a blue sky. Silver adorned every edge, every curl of a candelabra, every crack in the intricate tiled floor.
Familiar. It was all too familiar.
Alōs shouldn’t be here. He should never have come.
Especially as he felt his gifts buzzing across his skin with contentment, crooning and sighing with longing recognition of the magic that stirred heavy in these halls, the power that flowed from the High Surb who led the way.
Stop that, he commanded silently to his gifts, ignoring how they hissed when he hardened them to ice in his veins. He could not afford nostalgia.
Ixō stopped at a corner, making sure they were still alone, before turning down a smaller hall, a less opulent one meant for servants to pass through. Their path twisted, had them climbing stairs before they were blocked by a wall. Or what seemed like one. Ixō placed his torch in the awaiting holder mounted nearby, and with a quiet click, a hidden door slid open.
“Ready?” Ixō hesitated at the threshold.
Alōs stared at the low candlelight streaming in from the room beyond, his feet feeling chained down.
Ready?
No, he thought before striding past the surb.
Immediately he was hit with a heady dose of incense and the heat of a roomful of candles ablaze. In the center of the chamber stood a magnificently carved bed whose canopy depicted a twinkling night sky. As Alōs walked around it, he did not look at the bodies beneath the sheets; instead his attention remained on the young man who stood at the foot of the bed.
He was dressed immaculately in seafoam green, the material, which was detailed with white thread, draping his thin body in an intricate wrapping of loose pants and long tunic. His smooth brown skin shone with youth, but what set him apart was the addition of silver skin running over his hands and up his wrists like frayed gloves. The same metallic discoloration ran down from his dark hairline and over his forehead, as if he had been turned upside down at birth and dipped in a pool of liquid metal. It was a marking of a sickness stopped, of death frozen.
Candlelight glinted off the man’s sharp alabaster crown as he turned his head. Milky-white eyes landed on Alōs, the bit of blue they’d once held now a faded dream behind a thick veil. Though the young man was blind, Alōs knew he had other senses to help him see.
“Brother,” whispered Ariōn.
The word rang in Alōs’s ears, the sound a mix of exhaustion and relief.
Brother.
Alōs had not heard it spoken by this young man’s lips in a very long time.
Without thought, he walked forward, pulling his younger brother into an embrace. “Ariōn.”
It had been three years since they last were together, and many more since Alōs had been in this bedchamber, in this palace. But as he held Ariōn, breathing in his familiar scent of mint and sea air, it felt like no time had passed at all.
“They are gone,” said Ariōn, his voice still sounding so young. “It is just you and I now.” He stepped back but did not let go of Alōs.
This was when Alōs noticed the falling of sands. His brother had grown since he’d last seen him, now almost equaling Alōs in height. His shoulders were wider, too, but his hands were still boyishly soft, his chin void of stubble.
“They asked for you,” continued Ariōn. “Each before they went to the Fade. Mother and Father, they asked for their sons.”
Their sons.
The words sent shards of ice falling from around his frozen heart. Alōs held in a wince of pain. Dangerous. It was always dangerous to come here, and not just because he wasn’t allowed. Alōs couldn’t play the caring older brother and remain the ruthless pirate. One would always win out over the other, and he could not let emotions in, not when it had taken him so long to force them out. He could not hurt if he did not feel, did not need to mourn if nothing was lost. And to give up this land, this peace and beauty, his family—and to survive beyond it—Alōs had to leave behind everything that went with it. Himself included. He was no longer a brother. No longer “their son.” He was not Alōs Karēk, firstborn to the crown, but Alōs Ezra, the infamous pirate lord.
“Their son was with them,” said Alōs. “You were here.” He stepped from Ariōn’s grip and was met with a frown.