“Magical relics are unpredictable things. There is no record of Izathral in the texts I have read, but of cursed swords in general, there are many. They are tools of war. One can only presume what gruesome powers they must possess.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

The festival had ended without incident, if such a thing could be said. The dragon srinn had accepted the princess’s bow and the display of Izathral wordlessly, and then vanished into the night. With the looming promise of war, the nightlong Yulrian festival had come to a premature end. Cevora refused to speak casually with anyone, least of all anyone who wanted to know why Silver was the one holding the cursed sword of the vampires. Silver herself was quieter than usual, and no wonder; she had quite possibly lost a friend that night. Sori and Hiyein seemed baffled, Ren not so much; Bek often felt that Ren read through people much more easily than the other two. All in all, their group had been sobered by the evening’s events, and most of them really had no idea why. The dragons only made things worse, since Seijelar gloated over Silver’s ownership of Izathral, and the others were characteristically irritated by it.

Bek lay with his back against his bedding, eyes turned to the forbidding night just outside the window of the room he shared with most of the men from their training group at the outpost.

Silver had surprised him again. Firstly, by the fact that she had taken the sword, apparently unaffected by its curse. Secondly, in the manner by which she had taken it. He stood by the belief that Silver did not issue commands. He could count on his fingers the number of times she had demanded rather than requested something, most of them situations dire enough that no one in their right mind would have asked politely. She must have believed Cevora’s life was in danger, or she never would have stepped up the way she did…even at the risk of her own life. And knowing that she could not tell Cevora they were not from Atlantis, or that they wanted to help so desperately because it was their only ticket home, Silver had come up with the best answer she could – for the good of Alti. It was technically true, and yet…

As lies often did, it had backfired.

And that was when Silver had gone too far. She could have answered less forcefully when Cevora had asked how far she would go for the good of Alti. She could have sounded less truthful. Instead, she had left even Bek wondering where the real lies began.

And if what she had said was the truth, then why? Why would Silver Alurian go so far to protect Alti? How could Silver have known, as Illian had asked, that Izathral would not harm her? There was no doubt in Bek’s head she had known, not after seeing her expression when she held the weapon for the first time – the expression of someone scolding an unruly child, of someone relieved, at the same time, to find the child safe. Like she had seen it, held it, wielded it before….

And so the pieces, slowly, were coming together. Silver knew swordplay. She knew Izathral. She had the box that housed the Stones of Alti, now in the dragons’ possession. The doubts in his head were finally fading.

Silver was Altian. Everything she had said that night was the truth.

And yet somehow, she had ended up without any memory of Alti, living in a small city with only her immediate family, pursued by the Zara, investigated by the MASO. It was by the far the most bizarre case he had ever heard of, and the most unbelievable. Left to their modern era, he would have never suspected anything. And that, most likely, was the point. No one would suspect her. Someone had put her and her family someplace where they were, unequivocally, safe from anyone believing they could be Altian. Certainly, they had put her family somewhere no one but him would suspect that they were more than just Altian…

“Alurian,” he muttered to himself as he shifted into a sitting position. He removed one of the teardrop-shaped weapons from his pocket and slowly ran his hand across the metal, breaking the seamless welding of the metallic case. What he revealed was something that he thought would vaguely resemble a very small computer motherboard to someone who did not know anything about magical technology.

It had been damaged in their training.

His eyes absently followed the tracery of magic-conductive silver wires and clean-cut gemstones scattered, with no clear pattern, across the narrow shaft of iron-laced stone. All the while, he was thinking of a different set of enchantments than those that made his weapons work.

Memory alteration.

It was a tricky business, to say the least. It could leave someone paralyzed, comatose, a blithering idiot. Take too much, and it could erase the person underneath. Too little, and the rest would creep back up over the years. That was what was happening now, though he thought that was no fault of the masterful spell someone had cast on Silver. It was because they were being exposed to everything she had been forced to forget. He had told her that memory manipulation was simply too dangerous for someone to have removed much of her memory, but he had been wrong - someone had removed so much…so much that she was fighting with herself now, struggling to find the intersection between personalities built on an entirely different set of experiences. It could drive her mad if it happened too fast.

Although he remained reluctant to look for help in the guise of the old witch, Bek was starting to wonder if he should take Silver to Sara. Maybe she could do something, determine how the memory alteration had taken place, and how long ago. Maybe she knew some safer way to unravel it.

And that brought him back to Silver’s name. Names were powerful. They were defining. It was common practice in memory alteration to change them just as much as necessary and no more. Keep the beginning and the end, change the middle. That left him in a tough spot. Silver was unharmed by a curse said to kill anyone who was not royalty, and while he was certain the complicated history of succession and warfare in Alti meant that curse did not apply as strictly as it seemed to…

“Altin to Alurian,” he said under his breath. “Too simple. Too obvious. But not in a place where Alti is a fragment of a lost continent that a handful of people believe ever existed. Who did this? Who covered it up?”

At least Silver’s actions had a chance of saving Alti. Cevora was the lynch pin in Illian’s strategies; the succession of one of the Altins was possibly the only thing that could prevent either a power succession by the MASO or a public uprising like what had occurred in Atlantis. Every one of the captains under Illian’s command had said as much at one point or another.

Without Cevora, the MASO would attempt to put into place one of the Trent family, calling it a temporary action that might eventually lead to a military dictatorship should their move go conveniently unquestioned. And the king’s position was not salvageable, even if his actions against the beasts and his breaking of the Keliarn Agreement could be reconstrued as a result of the council’s meddling after the royal family lost considerable ground in the war with Atlantis. Whether it was one of the council or one of the MASO that eventually took to the halls of the Grand Castle of Altiannia, years of instability and civil intrigue would come first.

Bek’s bronze eyes darkened as his thoughts turned to the future, but he had located the problem in the circuitry. One of his alignment pegs had slipped, and the silver wire resting against it was no longer flush with the nearest conductor. Carefully calling the magic to his left eye to magnify his vision, he removed the peg and peered more closely. It had been made incorrectly from the beginning. He swore softly, glancing behind him at Hiyein. The thief slept like a rock, unlike Ren, who usually spent the nights elsewhere.

Recently, Bek had been making mistakes. His hands were unsteady, his focus lacking. But his body could not fail him – he would not allow it.

Working carefully, he drew a silver needle from his pocket and began to carve along the edges of the peg, stopping only when he was sure his work was up to standard. Although he hated to admit it, the peg should not have mattered. With the flow regulators misaligned, even the slightest fluctuation in his control would have resulted in unusual spikes in the weapon’s motion, but that would not affect his control. Pride killed men in the field. So did denial – of their weakness, their unimportance, and their flaws…

Momentarily setting his work aside, Bek reached into his bag to withdraw the hide-bound book that had consumed so many hours of his life already. He sometimes tried to fool himself into believing that he knew it from clasped cover to clasped cover, every inked illustration and carefully crafted word. In fact, he had not found anything important since discovering the map. Combing the pages for phrases that might mean more than they appeared to mean, or for some hint that overlaid magics had been worked over an image or sentence, had left him with numerous innocuous passages secreted away within the book. Few of them were useful – this was work he would have left for Weiss in their modern age; the man was so much faster at it than he was.

There was only one passage that seemed to relate to Bek and Silver’s current predicament, though obliquely; it related to the Castle of Divides.

“Zurialnal zekanal aver gonat, yankal jelarian treati keatet. Een nersnal ervis jik kriskal shereati. Krisnal puarliat osin,” he read. “A living thing of earth and stone, its eyes betray a captive soul. Water flows like time across its bones, yet centuries show no change.”

It was a passage describing one of the living stone monoliths like those the MASO had discovered in the chamber housing the dragon eggs. Yet, when Bek whispered the words aloud, the script glimmered and shifted beneath his gaze, and it was as if a page unfurled in place of the one he had read. He traced the new, delicate text with his eyes as the silence pressed in from all sides.

Perhaps the greatest of all living monoliths, this one carries with it the weight of eras long past, and also, the secrets. Its will is fickle, if such a creature can possess a will. None may guess what powers it might unleash against those who unwittingly stumble into its twisting corridors, but its duplicity has raised speculation; an identical beast exists in the land known as Erinnal Uritian, the Lost Continent.

Smaller words, written below the passage, were clearly meant to guide some adventurous reader, and Bek had no way of knowing if they had ever been followed. More than once, he had wondered if his own father had read these words years ago. And possibly acted on them.

Would that I could have studied it, I might have come here sooner.

Rigid streaks of heavy black ink curled across the page, arranged in a shape that could be none other than the Castle of Divides, in any era, any time, any place. How many times Bek had puzzled over this page since he discovered it two weeks ago, he did not know. What he did know was that it suggested the existence of two castles, possibly two castles linked by a spell that bridged the gap between Alti and their modern world.

Trapped deep in his thoughts, it was a while before Bek realized he was holding his breath, as if understanding would come to him at any moment. Releasing it, he finally became aware of the papery, parched dryness of his throat. Sighing, he snapped the book shut. His eyes strayed to the opened weapon at his side, gutted and glinting dully in the moonlight. Sliding the peg back into the metal casing, he clasped the pieces together and began to erase the seam. Seconds later, the weapon slipped from his fingers, and he caught it only seconds before it clattered to the wooden floor. He was not done, but that did not seem to matter. All the determination in the world could not help him in this state.

Frowning, he slid the unfinished weapon back into his pocket, stood, and slipped quickly from the room. Hiyein did not stir.

It did not take Bek long to reach a window in the hall at the back of the house. There, a steady stream of water fulfilled their daily needs in the expected, but peculiar, Altian fashion. Before being thrown back in time, he had never seen anything like it. Once they left, he probably never would again. Water cascaded softly from overhead into a basin at the window’s sill, where a tall stack of wooden bowls sat day in and day out.

Bek took one, filling it quickly. The water was cool where it lapped against his skin, cooler against his lips. He swallowed it so quickly and greedily he even surprised himself.

More slowly, he refilled the bowl and drank again. The water trickled down his throat, but did nothing to curb his thirst. He lifted his free hand to his throat, his breath coming faster. The magic that he had always felt ready at his beck and call was suddenly gone. Without thinking, he swallowed another bowl of the cool water, and his eyes narrowed when it did nothing to quench the burning that had consumed his mouth and throat and chest. It was not the first time.

And it was getting worse.

Bek knew what it meant; enough people in Libertia had been stricken by the seijak, the Ruveris Plague as the humans called it, for him to know the symptoms. But he would have been only the second rank five, after Silver, to be affected, and the disease had been progressing so slowly it was almost laughable. Most people died within weeks. He had been feeling the effects for months…

When he heard the front door of the building slide closed, he stood a little straighter, used to midnight visitors. The vampires tended to come with messages in the evening hours, for him or for all of them housed there.

“One of the fanged ones,” Skourett warned from the building’s roof, the dragon’s soft thrum audible even through the stone walls of the house. Surprisingly, the dragons seemed to have a high opinion of the vampires in general.

Bek set the bowl on the sill by the basin, moving his hand to the sill itself. Footsteps in the narrow corridor behind him told Bek the vampire had sensed where he was and come to find him.

“Thirsty tonight, are we? Recently, I’ve had the sense you’re ill.”

Bek inclined his head slightly, struggling and succeeding to control his breathing so that he could reply. “I might have eaten something that didn’t agree with me.”

Olrier came to a slow stop, regarding him thoughtfully. “It happens to the best of us. You should see one of our healers. Both Illian and Silver would mourn losing you over something so trivial.”

Bek laughed softly and took a deep breath, catching himself as he leaned against the sill of the window. Olrier seemed not to notice, and merely flashed his fangs in a brief grin.

“Speaking of thirst…for vampires, the use of magic particularly brings out our blood lust. It’s the scent of blood that’s the problem. You may have noticed that Urias and Vespar are rather special. Their affliction is mild, half-vampires as some would say, and yet even they, in working with Silver, have had…difficulties.” The vampire looked hard at him. “To be frank, the scent of her blood is very appetizing. So much magic…”

Bek felt his bronze eyes narrow into a fierce glare. The vampire smiled wolfishly at his expression.

“I’ll warn her,” Bek stated flatly.

“Bek Trent – you are one of the Trents, aren’t you – that woman’s life is safe in my hands for now. Vampires are not heartless beasts…except in the very first hours of their existence. The most dangerous one around her is you. In fact, that is the reason I’m here; to speak with you. The playing field has changed. No matter the cost to you or I, Silver must live through the war to come.”

Bek blinked, surprised. “You think I—”

“I think,” Olrier interrupted him smoothly, “like all of the MASO’s men, that you have ulterior motives. Many of them, in fact. You’re a strategist, a silver-tongue. There’s one like you among Illian’s brothers; Cifa. There’s no sharper or more dangerous snake in the grass. I don’t distrust you, per say, but I want to be very clear; as of today, the stakes in the war to come have changed. Whether the beasts rise triumphant, whether Cevora kuirsrinn lives or dies…both of these matters are important, of course, but neither so dire to the vampires’ position as Silver’s survival.”

“Why?” Bek asked simply. “She’s one woman, Olrier. One. One who I would rather keep alive, despite what you seem to believe, but if she died, what exactly would that change—”

Olrier raised a hand for silence. “I know who she is, Bek Trent. Until today, I doubted it, but now I know.”

There was meaning behind the vampire’s words, something he expected Bek to know. Something important. But Bek had no idea what it was. The silence stretched between them, and Olrier seemed to take it as Bek’s refusal to let slip that he understood.

“That room has become, for me, a very strange place. Governed by a door and a window…” Olrier paused, watching him, and Bek knew his expression did not give him away. Even so, the vampire nodded slowly, as if confirming something. “You know the phrase, the words that describe the heart of all magic. They are the revelation of its true nature. A place where dreams live freely, a space where the mind reconciles the two halves of our existence; what is, and what could be. Vampire lore, dreams shared by our kind for centuries. Even the kings and queens of Alti, vampires in themselves due to Izathral’s curse, know that place. And so does Silver, or so I have been told.”

“By whom?” Bek asked sharply. Olrier regarded him as coldly as ever. It was a long time before the vampire answered.

“The witch who came here with you, the woman Silver works with each morning, mixing her herbs and teas and poultices. She has an eye for talent, and a sixth sense for danger. Why do you think she really took another apprentice? For Silver’s sake? Illian’s? Or her own?” Bek glared at him until Olrier advanced slowly, eyes never leaving his.

“Another piece of vampire lore, then, Bek. In that room, there is a mirror that seems to reflect the heart. Every ounce of corruption, visible to the naked eye. Where dreams live freely, so, too, do nightmares.” Olrier paused, eyeing him harshly. “Why did she destroy the mirror, Bek? Why are there no mirrors here, in all of Libertia? Why is the witch afraid? You know the answers, just as I do.”

When Bek remained silent, the vampire’s amber eyes narrowed.

“The world is a mystery to us all, Bek. But for every man, his own nature is something he must live with, eternally and without rest. Remember that. You are not slave to the blood by which you were born.”

The vampire reached for one of the wooden bowls, his arm cutting mere centimeters from Bek’s face. Bek did not move, nor did his eyes leave Olrier’s as the vampire drank deeply, turned, and started away across the room.

“I’ve said what I came to say; how you respond is entirely up to you.”

Then the vampire was gone through the front door, and it fell to a silent close behind him. Bek filled his bowl again, sipping water slowly as his thirst receded and his hands began to steady. Olrier knew something. Gritting his teeth, Bek glared at the closed door. He and Silver should have been nearly invisible in this era, but somehow, they had become central to it instead. It made no sense.

“She is nerske,” Skourett rumbled, seeming to listen in on his thoughts, “and companion of dragons, as are you. How could you have been invisible to these humans? You have no such magic.”

“You heard what Olrier said?” Bek asked softly.

The dragon’s answer came to him almost immediately. “Human ears are weak, and their voices carry. But I did not understand.”

“Why are the beasts so interested in Silver, Skourett. Why did they push the vampires to bring her to the sword?”

“She is nerske. She is their eyes among men.”

“Is that really all there is?” he asked, looking out the empty window frame as if the dragon would be there, just beyond the dull glimmer of moonlight on the stone of Libertia.

“I do not know. It was Etrion srinn who declared she must be among those to retrieve the sword.”

“What?”

“It was Etrion—”

“Skourett, I heard you. I don’t understand why the srinn of dragons, who had only ever met Silver briefly, called for her specifically. They never even spoke.”

“The others also do not know. Etrion srinn said nothing to us.”

Still, that was enough.

“Why?” Bek muttered under his breath, turning back to the room.

It was a question without an answer. Unless, of course, he was keen on earning himself an audience with the srinn of dragons. Or convincing Olrier that he had not understood half of their conversation that night.