Maybe he was six years old, floating in the fountain, except Emrys hadn’t found him. Everything since had been nothing but the vivid throes of life fading.
Jesstin rolled again, onto his stomach, and shifted into a tense, shaky crouch. He made another attempt to lift his head, but it felt like an anchor ball was attached to the base of his skull. The world around him was a twisted kaleidoscope of blurred hues. Relentless rain hammered his spine and his neck, slid through his hair and down his cheeks.
He lifted a hand from the soaked stones to balance against a fall. He couldn’t stay like this. He had to stand, to push through the pain and confusion and the nauseating curl in his belly about to become his next problem.
Jesstin forced himself to his feet. He veered straight into the rough bark of a thick tree, but it was enough to give him his first full breath.
The especular. The Conductor. He’d been in a series of tests and then he’d made a choice that had sent him... wherever he was. He recognized nothing. Not the trees, more robust and bountiful than the ones in the forest he’d been in before, and definitely not the portentous crimson gates to his right.
Tall and presuming, they were a warning and a temptation. He blinked them into focus, then saw the sign, which he had to squint to read. For procession into the Estate of the Imperatum. All other intentions unwelcome. Our toleration for deception exists not.
Estate of the Imperatum. Why was that familiar? He slapped the tree to clear the cloud in his mind, but the bark sliced his palm. His blood was still red, so he wasn’t dead, unless the Conductor had lied about that too.
Who had told him Elloven’s library was part of the Imperatum? Elloven? The Conductor? Had anyone told him, or was he experiencing some sort of prophetic vision? It didn’t matter. What mattered was he was where he’d intended to be, so he must have passed his trials.
Unless it was another trick of the especular.
Jesstin sopped the moisture from his face onto his soaked sleeve and staggered to the gate through the downpour, clutching his aching side. He searched for a way to open the hulking metal, but it was smooth and unbroken.
Startled shrieks rang in the distance. Not fiends, people. There might have been no one guarding the interminable gate, but he wasn’t far from civilization, though what “civilization” could mean in a place like this, wherever this was, reminded him of visiting the universities of Oldcastle, each with their own colored spires, like Greencastle and?—
Jesstin slapped himself to dislodge the creeping delirium. He gave himself a moment to rest his forehead against the metal, to breathe. The sensation of falling through the earth rushed up to greet him, and he was only just realizing it, but it had been hanging over him since he pushed himself up off the crater he’d made in the earth. The disorientation was so overpowering, he reached for his flame, despite the warmth assuring him it was still there.
Somewhere, the Conductor was very, very angry.
He had to find Elloven. She wouldn’t be in the library, not at twilight. She should be safely tucked away in her havre, so that was what he would look for.
Jesstin abandoned the strange gate and headed in the direction where he’d heard the voices, which were still filtering in. One carried higher and deeper above the rest.
“IN! IN! TIS A PUNISHMENT FROM THE GODS, IN NOW IF YOU WANT TO BE SAVED!”
Dark spots boxed out the edges of his sight. He blinked through the rain as he limped, his feet the only part of him aware of the path. He was splashed by people running through puddles as they flew down the road. Their whispers lingered after they did, and he heard more of the same dread and panic in their harried exchanges. Illumina hadn’t arrived at all. They’d gone straight from lightrise to twilight, and they believed it was some sort of divine punishment. They’ve sealed the gates. What will be next? one declared, to which their companion fearfully begged them to stop speaking.
He tried to stop some of them as he hobbled along. “Have you seen a woman? She’s not very tall, golden-red hair. She’s... radiant... She’s... Please, if you could just...” Jesstin may as well have been pleading with the air. Dozens passed, and none stopped.
Only one even bothered to answer. “Pray she’s already safe, sir, or you’ll be asking different questions come lightrise.”
Jesstin peered into the darkening sky, ordering his left leg, the one in the most pain, to go faster. He lifted his trousers at his thigh to help his stride, but his knee buckled, and he collapsed on the muddy road. A rousing wave of tremors started in his lower spine and spread within seconds, and he lost whatever fortitude he’d marshaled. He reared his head back like a wounded beast and screamed through his aching jaw.
“Mother, look—over there,” a woman said. “We can’t leave him like that.”
“Get on, Elizabeth. Get on.”
“I will not leave someone behind. You taught me better than that.”
“You are just like your father!”
“And when he gets here one day, I’ll be glad to tell him so! Now help me!”
The women were behind him, but he had no authority over his own body, no way to turn and tell Elizabeth to listen to her mother. However far the next havre or cloister was, it was too far for him. He understood that now.
“Go.” Even the word was too much. He could barely hold himself aloft on his hands and knees. “Go.”
Arms looped around one of his at the shoulder. Following an exasperated sigh, more gathered around his other shoulder, and then he was yanked to his feet, but his bad knee gave out again. The women tugged harder, and soon they were dragging him through the mud, panting and straining against the burden of his bulky frame. In his mind, he pleaded with them to leave him, but nothing made it to his lips. At one point he realized he’d fallen unconscious, and the question of how long was too much to ask.
Elloven, he said instead, over and over, unsure whether anyone but his own demons were listening. I’ll find you. I’ll find you. I said I would. I promised.
“You promised who?” Elizabeth’s breath at his ear was a jolt of reality.
