I wrote them a letter explaining what I’d found, apologized for my failure to save their child, and enclosed the glove.
I left the letter anonymous and paid a courier to deliver it. I gave the courier explicit instructions not to identify me as the sender.
It was a coward’s approach, and I knew that. They would have questions. Perhaps they’d be angry at me for coming back alive when their child had not. Maybe they’d want to thank me for giving them some closure.
Maybe if my mother had received a letter like that one about Tristan, she’d have stayed with my father. Or maybe it would have just made things worse.
All I knew was that the uncertainty of Tristan’s fate had eaten me inside for years, and I wouldn’t condemn another family to that same condition if I could avoid it.
Maybe I was a coward, but a coward’s gift was better than no gift at all.
***
Before I left on the train to the Lorian Heights academy, I spent one last morning sitting in a grassy field where Tristan and I used to play, and I remembered.
He was tall. So much taller than I was. Taller than our father, even at fourteen. At nine, I hadn’t quite hit my growth spurt yet.
With his long, thin limbs, climbing the tree must have seemed like a trivial effort.
To me, it was an exercise in terror just to scramble up to the lowest branches.
“C’mon!”
I looked around uncertainly. Inside the house, Sera was playing a game of Valor against Father again. Lately, she was even starting to win a few rounds here and there.
Mother was out on business again, and our other retainers were all inside, tending to various chores.
There was no one nearby to catch me if I fell.
Tristan was already a good ten feet above me. High enough that looking up at him made me feel sick. Could I survive a fall from that height? Maybe hitting the branches on the way down would slow me enough that I’d just crack some bones open.
But he smiled brightly at me, encouraging as he always had been, and I fought past the fear.
My arm muscles were pretty strong for my age. Even then, I’d spent a lot of time practicing with weapons. Mostly the traditional ones like sword and spear. I didn’t have enough mana at that point to use a dueling cane with any degree of seriousness.
So, pulling myself up wasn’t a problem; it was just a matter of being able to reach a good branch in the first place.
Tristan waited for me as I inched, calculated, and feared. And finally, I reached... and pulled my way up to the next section of the tree. And the next. My fear grew with every inch, but he bolstered me with encouragement.
“You can do it!” and “Don’t be afraid!” echoed in my mind.
I was just one section below him. I judged the distance. “I can’t make it. It’s too far! I’m not tall enough to reach the branch.”
He laughed and reached down with a hand. “Then I’ll help you!”
I reached up to take his hand. With Tristan’s help, maybe I could reach —
Tristan leaned forward too far. His hand brushed against mine as he fell.
I winced, blinking away the memory. Tristan had been fine. He’d laughed when I’d finally made it back down the tree, fighting fear to scale my way down far faster than I’d gone up. The branches had bloodied him, but he’d made it through the fall without any permanent damage.
But I remembered that he’d fallen trying to help me, and that was Tristan to his core. He was always trying to lift me up, even at his own expense.
After so many years of Tristan looking out for me, it was long past time I did the same for him. I knew that I wouldn’t be going back into the tower immediately, of course. Attempting to climb the tower was far more dangerous than simply going through a Judgment, and what I’d seen inside had made it abundantly clear that I was not prepared for the true dangers of the tower yet.
So, I’d need to be patient. I’d practice. I’d master my attunement, grow strong enough to survive.
But when I was strong enough, I’d reach for that highest branch.
I hoped that Tristan could keep waiting for me, just a little bit longer.
***
Riding on the train was a considerably different experience with Sera sitting next to me.
It wasn’t the first time we had traveled together; we had rarely been apart as children. Three years apart had changed both of us, however, and my father’s plans — maybe our father’s plans — had been deliberately formulated to create a degree of tension between us.
I wasn’t going to let things stand that way.
When we’d first left the station, she’d sat with perfect poise, looking out the window and waving at the house servants that stood at the station. The perfect image of a young noblewoman already missing her family and friends.
Within minutes, she’d shifted in her seat into something resembling a ball, curled around a book.
This was the Sera that I remembered. Someone I could work with.
I pulled out a book of my own. Trials of Judgment, the book from inside the tower.
Then, flipping to a blank page, I removed the quill and inkwell from my backpack.
I caught her eye flickering toward me, curious. She caught my eye catching her eye. I caught her eye catching my eye... you get the idea. We exchanged glances, saying nothing.
I began to write.
Oh, Great Mysterious Book Entity, Voice of the Tower, etc. etc.
Are you receiving this message? I’m not sure if this thing works, now that I’m outside the tower.
Really, I’m not sure if the book itself was ever significant or if you were just using it as a medium to communicate with me.
Please clarify.
Yours in an unspecified amount of indentured service,
Corin
I smirked, waiting and watching for a few minutes. In spite of my brilliance, there was no reply.
I sealed the ink container and stashed it, the quill, and the book back in my bag.
Sera glanced at me again as I finished putting the book away. “Magic book,” I said simply.