Chapter Text
Master Ikithon slides a piece of paper over the table, a recreation of a spell-paper slip.
BREN, it reads, vital as a knife through her throat. Astrid’s eyes snap to his face. She bites her tongue, kills the flood of questions ready to spill free, waits for her orders.
“Owelia found him,” Ikithon explains. He sighs. “I tried to scry for her, and found only the stump of a great tree, burned to ash.”
She resists the urge to look at Wulf, to show emotion. “She is dead, then?”
Ikithon nods. “And Bren is once again free.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Wulf asks, carefully neutral, but Astrid can hear both the fear and hope in his voice mirroring her own.
“Who else would I send, to bring him home?”
The tension that burns in her neck, in the old scar, fades a little. She clears her throat. “You said you could not scry Owelia.”
Ikithon smiles, slow and deliberate. “Ah, so I did. But I tried again. I do believe she managed to destroy his amulet.” He beckons them over, and Astrid can see that the swirling pool of oil in the silver ewer behind him is not the pitch-black of a blocked spell. Instead, an image has been fixed; a decrepit farmhouse, of what looks like Marrow Valley make, fallen almost entirely to ruin. “We have, at last, a way to find Bren.”
“We can be ready now,” Astrid promises. “If you can send us, we will-”
His smile turns tolerant. “I shall. But the two of you must be careful. We have not seen him for years, as you know. He may still be mad.”
“I know.” She ceases there, does not say that even if he is they will still stop at nothing to bring him home.
Ikithon stands. In one hand, he holds Owelia’s final message, raises the other, clutching a viridian gemstone focus. “You will tell me, when he is ready to be brought.” Light begins to spark forth from it, the clear and sickly green of residuum dancing across their faces. “But, should you fail…” he trails off.
“He is ours,” Astrid promises.
“If he is not, I will have to send those who can finish the job,” Ikithon warns, as the green becomes blinding and, hand linked with Wulf’s, Astrid feels herself disappear.
—--
Caleb is collapsed, still, and Nott is simultaneously glad to see his chest rise and fall and furious that she had to ask the purple one to help drag him back. He shifts on the bed, muttering in a language that she does not speak, tossing and turning nearly as feverishly as Fjord had in the hours before.
The sailor rests peacefully, now, and Caleb looks like he’s the one with venom running through his veins. Nott checked Fjord, even, before coming to sit by her only friend’s bedside. That’s teamwork. She watches the sweat bead on his brow, and reaches out her hand to lay on it before remembering - she flips it, presses the back of her claw to his forehead. He’s clammy rather than hot. That’s probably good, although she doesn’t know the first thing about the aftereffects of using too much magic. Even so, she dabs at his forehead with a towel, this one carefully warmed.
Nott the Brave is exhausted, and afraid, and as much as she tries to push the image away Caleb’s discomfort reminds her of a colicky child. She can’t rock him. Instead, she crawls into the space between his knees and chin, and twines her bandaged arms together with his own.
Beau, sitting in the other corner of the room, scoffs. “You might not want to do that, Nott. You don’t know where he’s been - what he’s done.”
He smells of shit and soil and the awful scent of burnt flesh, and she tucks her goblin nose to his chest and ignores the monk. He’s been somewhere awful, she can tell, and done worse. But he’s still hers, and she won’t let him out of her sight until he can say it back.
“He’s ill,” Nott protests. “I have to take care of him.”
“Is that what you call it,” Beau asks laconically. “Didn’t see you snuggling up to Fjord when you had the chance.”
Nott spits on the ground, which is a pretty good achievement from where she is. “I don’t like liars.”
Beau eyes her uneasily, and says nothing.
—--
He wakes up to the sound of a blast, shattering the few windows this rickety old place has left. Caleb has not slept soundly since he was a child, but even for him it is a rude awakening.
Caleb gropes for his component pouch, and finds nothing. Even the reed he keeps in his belt has been slipped away - so, Nott has helped, and doubly so when he finds his hands are not bound.
He hears something through the closed door, faintly, and then a high scream that can only be Jester. The superficial burns across his arms don’t matter, the dry feeling of his eyes and mouth - he springs towards the door, and does not let the wave of vertigo that slams into him stop his advance.
Anyone could be out there, he knows grimly, and feels the truth deep in the pit of his stomach. Anyone, but most likely someone come to kill him. He slams the door open and holds his hands up to cast, pretends he can conjure anything more powerful than a candle-flame.
Eadwulf and Astrid are standing in the center of the room, and Astrid has a knife to Jester’s throat. Caleb freezes.
Eadwulf’s eyes lock with his, and the edges of his old friend’s mouth curl up into a smile. “Found you,” he says, and when did his voice get so deep?
Astrid is smiling, too, sharp as the shards slipped beneath her skin. “Why don’t you come outside, Bren? I believe we have much to discuss.” Her face is scarred, and Caleb wonders if it is that that makes him feel sick and uneasy when her tone softens. “Come home with us.”
He can’t move his feet. Jester is whispering to herself, frantically, and he hears “mama” and “please” through her shallow sobs. It is his fault, he knows, and there is nothing he can do. Owelia, he could fight. An unnamed assassin, bearing his old master’s colors. But Caleb cannot bring himself to move against two of the only people left he loves.
Caleb bows his head, and begins to step forward.
The room explodes into a shining pink light, and tiny, lurid pink hamsters pull aside Astrid’s arms as Jester jumps away. Fjord, still weak, lifts a hand, and seething gold-black light begins to coalesce in his palm; Eadwulf is still focused on Caleb, but he sees Astrid whip to face the new threat.
A sharp voice rings out in the rotting room. “He’s not going anywhere with you,” Nott says, and matches the verbal dart with an equally sharp crossbow bolt leveled at Astrid’s chest.
No, he wants to say. To beg. But he can feel the weight of his crimes, his silent years, and they all come to rest on his tongue. The only thing he manages to choke out is a quiet, “please.”
No one listens.
Fjord moves first, the bolt of dripping light shooting towards Eadwulf. It is powerful, but badly targeted, and he hardly has to lean to the side before it shoots past and strikes one of the farmhouse’s creaking beams. Astrid doesn’t take the insult kindly, and the suggestion of a violet arcane blade sears itself into Caleb’s eyes before the dagger strikes through the half-orc’s shoulder, pinning him to the wall.
“I didn’t want to have to do this,” Wulf calls back at Caleb. He raises his hand, and Caleb can see the air distorting around it before a terrible sound rings out, a wave of force rolling towards his new allies.
It hits them hard, and Beauregard is knocked off her feet, rolling to come back up in a fighting stance. Blood wells from behind Mollymauk’s teeth, and as he spits it at his sabers it turns to ice.
“A pretty trick,” Astrid declares, “but not enough.” She extends a hand. “The door was barred, Bren. They were holding you.”
“We were keeping watch, you bitch,” Beau manages to spit out. “From monsters like you.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Caleb can see Fjord, doing calculations in his mind. Realizing that the only thing left to do would be to run. Perhaps they will manage it, Caleb hopes. He certainly has no optimism left for himself.
“Listen,” Mollymauk says, aiming for cocky, “do we have to do this now? We’re tired, it’s been a long day, surely you can come back and kill us in the morning.”
Eadwulf laughs. “Good try.” Mollymauk leaps at him, and a spectral armor shimmers over Eadwulf’s body as his first strike glances off. The second one, though, hits, carving through a gap and into his powerful forearms. Wulf does not wince.
A bolt of lightning arcs past him, and Mollymauk is struck in the back. Astrid has lost her patience. The tiefling falls, the back of his luxurious coat destroyed, his skin blackened beneath until only a red eye can be seen through the soot.
Jester screams, and as her voice hits its height a spectral lollipop sweeps out, hitting Astrid across the back. She runs to Mollymauk, kneels down at his side and begins frantically trying to put out the little fires consuming the back of his coat.
Beauregard’s eyes dart to Caleb for a half a second. She curses under her breath, and instead of charging at the Volstrucker in front of her, she pitches a tattered bag in Caleb’s direction. The iron grip around his body releases, and he holds out his hands to catch his component pouch. Beau bares her teeth. “I already took down one of you. How much worse can a double-team be?” She leaps at Astrid, who is still reeling from Jester’s attack. Her first hit lands, catching Astrid in the sternum. As she pulls back her fist for the second, Astrid catches the strike in her palm. She gives Beauregard a vicious smile in return, and spits azure fire straight into the monk’s face. Beauregard stumbles back, trying to clear away the flame from her eyes, and Astrid sweeps her legs out from under her and stabs another dagger down into her unprotected abdomen.
Caleb cannot look. He scrabbles through his pouch, pushing aside the incense and wheat he has gathered to form a semblance of his past, and digs for the power to instead confront it. His last full vial of lumina beetle fluid is gone, but he cleaned his hands after distilling it, and the rag at the bottom of the pouch is still stained with the vivid orange. He pulls it out, and in his other hand conjures flame.
“Joining us?” Wulf asks, ignoring the blood pouring forth from his shoulder. “It might be a good idea, Bren.”
Caleb drops the rag into the fire, and a wave of flame begins to roil forth.
It fizzles. The burnt cloth drops to the ground pathetically. Astrid flexes her fingers, arcane energy melting away. “That was sloppy. When did you start telegraphing your moves?”
He has bought a little time, at least. Nott the Brave, and Caleb is quite certain there should be a comma, throws herself from a rafter onto Astrid’s back, carving down with a knife. “Leave us alone,” she hisses. “Caleb is mine!” A dark patch begins to spread under Astrid’s clothing, and Caleb is half-paralyzed by the sight of her blood. The insane desire to protect both of them at once rushes over him.
Eadwulf grabs Nott by the throat, and slams her against the nearest wall. The flimsy wood shakes, and Nott’s fingers scrabble at his single hand, large enough to pin her. He ignores the scrapes and cuts, letting the superficial wounds mark his skin, and squeezes.
She lets out half of a cry, and then stops; no more air.
“No!” The plea that tears out of Caleb shocks even himself. “Please, no!” Eadwulf stops. Astrid cocks her head at him, and he can see the question behind her eyes. “Please,” he repeats raggedly, “I will go with you. Do not hurt Nott. She is all I have.”
He can see the two of them meet one another’s gaze, can see the discussion that used to happen between all three of them easy as breathing. Caleb can no longer read the two people he knows best in all the world, here when they are threatening to kill the third.
He drops his component pouch, begins to undo the wrappings around his arms. He can see Jester, still trying to heal Mollymauk, in his periphery, and one of her hands covers her mouth at his scars. The pits and burns are ugly, but they are empty of residuum. “I can’t hurt you,” Caleb pleads. “Please, let them all go.”
“Come outside,” Astrid commands, and Caleb steps towards the door. He does not, cannot, look back at the new friends he must leave behind. Eadwulf joins them - but he has not put down Nott, and the goblin girl still scrabbles at his arms as she is borne away from their companions.
He gives Wulf a hard look, one that used to mean “listen.” Wulf ignores him. As they pass the threshold, Wulf slams a hand down, and a rune-ward springs to life. It will not hurt his traveling companions, so long as they do not try and pass it, and in time it will fade, but Caleb knows how badly they are injured behind it. He can feel the bile rising in his throat.
Astrid, Wulf, and the struggling Nott drag him back along the path he took a few hours ago, back to the burnt glade and the ruins of Owelia.
—--
The clearing looks worse in the first shadings of daylight, every tree trunk scorched black and the grass turned to dust.
Wulf draws out straps of leather from his bag, winds them around Nott’s arms and legs and one between her teeth, and crushes chalk in his palm. The leather turns to steel. Nott struggles, and growls at him, and Wulf lays a hand against her forehead and she goes limp.
“Why will you not leave her,” Caleb asks, again, and he can hear the edge of begging in his voice.
Wulf shrugs. “The goblin matters to you. So, we can’t take you without her.” A hostage, then; unlike him, they have not run from their master’s training.
Astrid turns to him, and for the first time in years he gets a close look at her face. The scar through her left brow only makes her more handsome, but Caleb cannot bring himself to examine the wreckage at her jaw and neck once he realizes it is in the shape of a hand. Her eyes have only grown sharper and harder, but as she looks at him they soften, and there is love left there after all. Some part of him wants badly to rise and meet it.
“He will kill me,” Caleb says instead, softly. “I left, and he knows of me, and he will kill me.”
Astrid lifts her battle-worn hand to his cheek and cradles it. “Bren, the only thing we want is for you to come home.”
“My home burned,” he chokes out.
“Your home is us,” Wulf says, in that deep voice he has finally grown into. “And we will not let him harm you.”
Astrid nods savagely in agreement. “We will not make you do anything, Bren. If you want to stay in our home and study, and never raise another hand to fight, we will have you.”
His hands pull hers away from his face, pushing her back gently. “You are not the Archmage.” He will never be left alone, be safe, be anything but a tool of war, seized back to its rightful master. Even if he is a broken tool.
Astrid does not speak aloud, but he can still hear her. Something in the set of her jaw and eyebrows say that she is not Archmage, yet.
Caleb lets Wulf tie leather around his arms, and is not reassured by the fact that it is not turned to steel.