Ace’s instruction pulls me back to the here and now. “So I see it,” he says, his eyes darting to the wine and urging mine to follow. “And I feel it.” His fingers move in a twisting, lifting motion above the drink.
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like I can visualize the way it moves, and I can feel the energy running through it as it does.”
“Is this the same magic that would move streams?” I ask, pieces from the past days slowly falling into place—or so I hope.
“Yes!” He lights up at the connection. I swear his chest puffs out as if I just told him he was the greatest teacher in all of history. “That took more effort. So much more. Often an entire village couldn’t complete the task alone. They would call for others to help. Thousands of glasses of wine moving across the land from a hundred different minds guiding it.”
“Minds? So it’s a mental thing?”
“Not the way I heard it,” Soria speaks up. For someone born so near after the Fade, it is clear she grew up deep within its lore. “Mind, perhaps, but heart also. Some say their very soul would reach toward the forces all around them to touch magic.” She takes a sip of her own wine, glancing out the window to the fading day in that far-off way she has when words don’t quite do justice to what she carries inside. “Some magic could be taught, some seemed inherited. And some… well, let’s say there were those more attuned to the natural gift than others.”
“So when you had families like the mapmakers or the scribes…” I lean in, coaxing more from her.
“A bit of both, I suppose.”
I think of Fenloris, coming from a long line of Masters of Passes. To have that kind of legacy just slip away—Caerhollan carries so many scars.
“What was it like when the Fade happened?” My words are hushed, reverent. I have never really asked much beyond what they have offered. Such painful days are often best left in the past. Yet if I am to understand what their world was like, to make sense of what is now shifting, I need to know how it changed the first time.
“It was slow,” Vale says. Standing across the room, he signals for Ace to pour him a glass of wine. Even he knows a conversation like this is easier to bear with something to dull the ache. Glass now in hand, he takes a sip. “It was never fully reliable. Even as people started to take it for granted, using it in trivial, thoughtless ways. You couldn’t be certain if the winds would remain favorable or the fires would stay lit.”
“The church”—only a slight scoff accompanies the word—“they loved to say it was because we needed to be more devout. I suspect that’s why they lost so much power when things got bad. By the time it was clear magic wasn’t just being fickle, by the time even those most adept at its use failed, no amount of prayer could bring it back.”
He looks out the window toward the valley lush with midyear growth. He clears his throat, perhaps at the threat of it cracking under the weight of his words. “I think it was the first season the crops yielded too little that things really started to turn. We had enough to sustain us—cellars full of reserves. But by spring, things were tense. Without magic to coax buds out of the soil in the early months, fear spread. It wasn’t long before people started to turn on each other.” He looks down and away. I can feel him pulling back from the memory.
Thunder cracks in the distance, and the mood darkens. As clouds swallow the sun, Vale moves to light the fire. Heat is more comfort than necessity even at night; this high in the mountains there is a chill, but it is mostly tolerable. The need for a fire now strikes at something deeper. Maybe it’s comfort. Maybe it’s control.
The logs are stacked neatly in the hearth, kindling exactly where it should be. He reaches for the flint.
Even frustrated, Vale is always a man in control—a constantcommander. The flint, on the other hand, seems to have a different agenda.
He slams the tinderbox on the mantle. It’s enough of a jolt to make me flinch. Or perhaps it’s the lightning drawing so near. Either way, it unsettles me.
I rise and walk over to him, pressing my palm between his shoulders. They remain tense.
Perhaps these memories are too much.
I look to the stack resting in the fireplace. I could offer to help, but it doesn’t feel right. We both know I have the skills. I do not think he would be offended. Yet revisiting a time when the world lost so much, when everything was out of control… now is not the moment for me to step in.
Rubbing the base of his neck—a comfort he does not pull away from—I focus on his warmth.
A fire is not needed when I have him to keep me warm. I close my eyes and the thought alone seems to heat me. I am not even in his arms, and still I feel my temperature rise.
“Gods above,” Soria breathes, her voice low and haunting.
The fire crackles.
Vale and I both step back instinctively. The tinderbox still sits untouched atop the mantle; Soria and Ace remain seated on the far sides of the room, and there in the hearth a fire steadily breathes to life.
I lean into Vale, uneasy despite the contained blaze before us. We move together and sit on the couch, never turning our backs to the hearth and the stark evidence it holds.
I look not only at the fire, but into it—through it.
“See it. Feel it,” I murmur as Vale wraps his arm more tightly around me. The storm outside now mirrors the turmoil inside my chest. “I wasn’t trying to.” I turn toward him, confusion and shame rising to the surface.
“I know, love. I know.”
Ace turns back to his wineglass. Less over-the-top than his usual flair, it rests in his hand as he swirls a lone finger just above the rim. “Nope. Still not working,”he sighs.
