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‘Don’t go back, Essek.’
It is disconcerting, being on the receiving end of Jester Lavorre’s anger. Or – not anger, perhaps, but a resolve so fierce that her jaw is shaking and her tail is lashing, cutting sharp lines through the air. ‘You don’t need to go back. Just stay with us. Quit being the Shadowhand and just be Essek.’
Essek swallows, and stares at the ground. ‘It is not that simple, Jester.’
‘Why? Why isn’t it? Just go to the Bright Queen and be like, hey, you know how I was meant to keep an eye on those heroes of the Dynasty? I kind of fell in love with them all and now I don’t want to do Shadowhand stuff anymore, I want to stick around with them.’
‘You’re not wrong.’ Because he does love them. Light, but he loves them. ‘But the Bright Queen would not be the issue. She would be surprised, perhaps, and reluctant to let me go, but I doubt she would prevent me from making my own career decisions. The Umavi, on the other hand, my Den – if I were to simply abandon my position, they would –’
The sentence falters on his lips. Because quite honestly, he isn’t sure what the Umavi would do, and to say she would be furious would make him sound like a child. It is ridiculous, that at the age of a hundred and twenty he still flinches from the mere thought of her disapproval –
‘They can go fuck themselves,’ Jester snaps, and Essek blinks at her. ‘Your Den doesn’t love you, Essek. We love you.’
The final sentence hangs between them, so strangely gentle for something spoken with such ferocity. A second passes. In his periphery, Essek sees Beau and Caduceus nodding, sees Caleb watching him with that unreadable intensity that still, after all these months, makes Essek’s skin prickle.
Essek breathes out. Then he takes a step towards Jester, and leans into her arms.
He rests his head against her shoulder and clings tight, fingers bunching into her hood, and he doesn’t cry but his breathing is quickening into a panicked mess and his body is shaking against her. Her hands squeeze tight, and she turns her head to whisper into his ear – ‘It’s okay, Essek. It’s okay. I mean it. We really, really do.’
He believes her.
‘Thank you,’ he chokes into her shoulder, and he knows she doesn’t need him to add, no one has told me that before.
Except that they have, of course. Just not out loud.
The first time Essek allows himself to think that one of the Mighty Nein might love him, it’s – well, it’s because of Jester, of course.
Here is how it happens: he knocks on the door of the Xhorhaus, intending only a check-in on the Mighty Nein’s progress, as many stolen minutes in their company as they’re willing to give. The door bangs open under his fist, sending the wind chimes crashing madly against each other – and Jester thrusts her hand through the doorway and grabs Essek by the cloak. ‘Essek! Holy shit, you’re right on time, I’ve got the coolest thing to show you –’
She tugs him – with ease, seeing as he didn’t have time to drop his float – over to the ladder that leads to the basement. ‘So here’s the thing. I realised we have this whole basement that we’ve never used, which is really dumb because it’s a secret basement. So I got Yasha to help me move some things down here, and –’
The rest of the speech is muffled as she slides down the the ladder. Essek gathers up his cloak, and follows.
His first impression is that he has somehow descended into the night sky. He blinks, looks again, and sees that Jester has painted the walls and ceiling in deep purple, studded with a million flecks of white. Every speck is shimmering gently, casting enough light together to fill the room.
Essek turns in a slow circle. Reaches out to touch one of the tiny painted stars. ‘How did you do this?’
‘You know how Caduceus and I keep the tree alive, those lanterns with magicky glow-y water? We just cast the same thing on the paint. I don’t want to brag or anything, but it was pret-ty cool.’
‘That it is. What will you be using this room for?’
Jester stares at him. ‘I mean – it’s your room, obviously. I know we have a guest room, but that’s for guests, and you’re someone who should have, like, a room to stay in. I don’t know, I kept thinking about how you’ve got that huge house with only you in it, and it probably gets pretty lonely in there, and –’ She looks down, suddenly subdued. ‘When I got sad when I was little, and momma was working and the Traveller wasn’t there, I’d pull all my blankets into a corner and snuggle up inside them. And I'd read and draw and do fun stuff until it went away, you know? So… now you’ve got a place to go, if like, your mom says something shitty to you. Or you know, if you just want to hang out with us, because you love us.’
A room. For him, in the Mighty Nein’s home. Painted to look like the heart of a galaxy. Essek has done nothing, nothing to earn such a gesture, and his eyes and throat are stinging, and it’s with some difficulty that he manages to say, ‘I – this is beautiful, Jester.’
He intends to add that he isn’t sure why she’s done this, that surely the rest of the Nein will not want him inserting himself into their household – but Jester beams at him, and he can’t get the words out.
‘Veth gave us the spare bed that Yeza isn’t using any more, and Caleb said you’d want some books, so he gave me all the ones he’s finished reading. And Caduceus helped me make a bookshelf.’ She indicates it with a proud sweep of her hand. One of the shelves has been fitted at a slant, the few books resting on it (more than one of which appears to be a lewd romance novel) leaning sideways. It might just be the most wonderful thing that Essek has ever seen.
‘Do you wanna hang out here for a bit now? We have ice cream – Veth made it with Shape Water, it can freeze stuff – so we can have some of that. I could get Caduceus to join in, he’s so good for just being cosy with and he tells the best stories. Unless you’re, you know, busy with Shadowhand stuff.’
A hundred-year-old instinct tells him to insist that he is busy, and that this is juvenile. But Jester is still beaming at him, and she’s so very pleased with herself, and the idea of disappointing her is unthinkable.
‘Well, I – I wouldn’t want to waste all the work that you put into this.’
Jester’s grin widens, and her hands flash into casting of the Sending spell. ‘Hey, Caduceus, Essek showed up and he really loves the room. Bring the ice cream down and come join us! And bring some more blankets so we can build the biggest fort, we’re going to tell stories and stuff –’
‘I believe he heard everything up to ‘blankets.’’
Jester mutters something about stupid spells with stupid word limits, then sprints over to the bed to drag the blankets off. ‘Help me make a fort with these. And if you take off your cloak, we can use that too –’
Five minutes later, she’s dragging Essek inside the tent she’s constructed. The Umavi’s voice in his mind snarls that this is childish, and Essek shoves it away. He can have this. He wants this. Just a few hours to soak up how easy everything is, around Jester.
‘So if you’ve never been in a blanket fort before,’ Jester says, thumping herself down cross-legged and pulling Essek with her, ‘then the best thing to do in one is telling stories. Should I start, while we’re waiting for Caduceus?’
‘By all means.’
‘Okay okay okay. So, like, sometimes when I was little, I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and momma would be working, and the Traveller would come visit me and he would tell me bedtime stories, and one time –’
Essek listens. His chest is aching, filled with someone hot and huge that couldn’t possibly be expressed with a mere thank you. Because this – the room made for him in his friends’ home, the stars on the ceiling, this ridiculous story about a magical fruit and a hippogriff with a name he already can’t remember – all of this is an act of love.
Yasha tells him in a way that is utterly Yasha: quietly, awkwardly, and with flowers.
He misaims a teleport on a journey with them, which means a four-hour trek to their destination. None of the Nein mind, somehow – Beau even thumps him between the shoulders and tells him he’s in good company with a whole bunch of fuckups – but Essek’s cheeks burn as they go. Partly from the embarrassment, and partly because even with his parasol, the sunlight is insufferable. But then they enter a forest, and the canopy’s shade is enough for Essek to put the parasol down. He huffs out a relieved breath, takes a few steps into the trees – and stops.
The floor of the wood is carpeted with flowers. Deep blue-purple, a sea in every direction, so many that the ground is invisible. The sunlight falls on them in thick, dusty rays, and catches on the backs of insects as they flit beneath the leaf cover. The Mighty Nein, following the path ahead of Essek, are outlined in yellow-white light.
Next to him, Yasha stops too. Her lips are apart, the tiniest of smiles tugging at her mouth, and Essek feels justified in glancing at her and smiling too.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Yasha says, and Essek dips his head.
‘It is.’
He’d like to stand here longer, but the others are getting ahead of them – so with a hefty amount of regret, Essek hooks his parasol onto his belt, and trudges after them. He’s halfway to catching up with them when Yasha speaks, suddenly, loudly, from behind him. ‘Can we, um, stop for a moment? I need to, you know. Take a break.’
Seven pairs of eyes turn to her, and she shrugs.
Which is how Essek ends up seated beside Yasha on a fallen tree trunk, with as much time as he could ask for to appreciate the forest and the flowers and the glinting insects. Yasha bends down to pick one of the flowers, and twists it back and forth between her fingers for a moment before pressing it into the pages of her book. ‘Veth says they’re called bluebells.’
It’s such a small thing to find charming, the name of a flower. But Essek is learning that he rather enjoys appreciating small things. ‘We are a long way from Xhorhas.’
Yasha nods, her lips pressing together thoughtfully. ‘I think we’re sort of lucky, in a way. You know, because we’re Xhorhas kids. Everyone else has always had flowers, but for us, when we see flowers, it’s, um. Really good. A surprise. You know?’
He does. ‘Going without something… does help you to appreciate it, when you find it.’
Yasha’s eyes flick over to the rest of the Mighty Nein, throwing snacks to each other and clambering up trees a little way away. ‘It really does,’ she says, and puts a hand on Essek’s shoulder. Just for a second. Then she removes it, blinking at her own fingers as if she’s unsure how exactly they made their way over to Essek.
There’s a pause; then Yasha shrugs, and holds up a fist. ‘Xhorhas kids.’
Essek stares at her, bewildered, and she reaches for his hand. He lets her take it, and she closes his fingers into a fist before knocking her hand against his. ‘You do it to show that you’re part of a team with someone,’ she explains. ‘I don’t know why. It’s just a… thing that you do.’
Essek does not know why either, but the gesture is enough to make him smile. ‘I see. Then… Xhorhas kids indeed.’
She smiles back, pressing her hand against his for a second more before letting go. And it is, Essek knows, an act of love.
For a man so skilled at talking, Fjord seems to struggle to put it into words. Which doesn’t surprise Essek in the slightest; it’s one of many things they have in common (along with habitual deception, lonely childhoods – and that small matter of Fjord nearly unleashing destruction upon the world, and Essek outright doing so.) There are some things it’s simply easier to express by offering a teleportation spell, or help with spell-crafting.
Fjord, apparently, finds it easier to express those things with his own blood.
Essek is surrounded. His cloak is shredded, crimson soaking into the fabric, his lungs heaving as the mother behir looms before him and the three juveniles close in from behind. There’s barely a drop of magic left in him, and he’s strongly considering panicking when Fjord shoulder-charges one of the smaller beasts and slams it to the side. Its jaws flash out, tearing into Fjord’s side with a spray of blood, but he grits his teeth and keeps running. He reaches Essek, grabs him by the arm, says ‘Hold tight -’
And then there’s a slam of thunder and a jerk at Essek’s guts and they’re ninety feet away, watching the behirs screech as the Thunder Step bursts their eardrums.
Later, once the creatures are dead and most of the Nein are napping away the exhaustion, Fjord taps Essek on the shoulder and gestures for him to follow. There’s a river not far from their impromptu campsite; Fjord heads down to the edge, strips to his undershirt and trousers, and holds out his hands. The water swells, then rises beneath Fjord’s pull.
‘I know you’ve got your – your magic cleaning… thing,’ Fjord says, ‘but after the shit you went through today, I thought you might want something a little more, you know, real. I should warn you that this is fucking freezing, but it’s the only way to get a decent wash out here.’
Essek nods; Prestidigitation is a useful spell for keeping up appearances, but it never makes anything feel cleaned. He pulls off his jacket and tosses it aside.
Fjord tugs at the water, and the wave rises to hang over them both, suspended above their heads. At a flick of Fjord’s hand, water begins to drip down onto them – a rain-like shower that soaks through Essek’s tunic and sweeps the dirt from his skin. It certainly is freezing, and Essek draws in a sharp breath – but Light, it’s good to feel this, to have real water soaking him clean. Sometimes, after days on the road with the Nein, he feels like he would happily trade away another Beacon in exchange for a bath.
There’s little room for embarrassment out in the wilderness, Essek has learned, so he pulls off his shirt once it’s thoroughly soaked and lets the water patter against his chest. There’s a fresh mark there, three broad claw marks running in paralllel his ribs. The clerics’ healing magic can only go so far.
He’s been building a collection of scars over his travels with the Nein – one he’s never really taken the time to examine before. A voice in his head that sounds uncomfortably like the Umavi tells him that they are imperfections, that they mark him out as vulnerable, too weak to protect himself. Essek bites his lip and glances at Fjord. This man wears his scars openly, because he has no choice – they mark his face, they are burned into his hands in the form of old callouses. And then there’s the ragged mess of tissue in the centre of his chest, revealed as Fjord bunches up his tunic to squeeze the dirtied water from it.
For a moment, Essek envies Fjord’s confidence, his comfort with his own vulnerability. Then he remembers Fjord’s old accent, the way his tusks were still a little stubbier when Essek first met him, and wonders if Fjord is as comfortable as he seems.
Fjord is watching him, he realises – or rather, watching his fingers’ uncertain path over the fresh scars. He shoots Essek a lopsided smile. ‘You get used to it.’
‘Do you?’
Fjord opens his mouth, frowns, and closes it again. He’s quiet for a moment, the water trickling down his face. ‘I don’t know. I guess I don’t have any really strong feelings about them either way. I mean, this one – ’ he taps the mark on his chest – ‘Definitely comes with some bad memories, but it’s also a reminder of how Caduceus literally reached into – wherever I was going, I guess – and pulled me out. And sometimes it’s just… you know. There.’
He gestures vaguely. Essek smiles, and taps his own scar – quickly regretting it, because while the wound is healed, his skin still remembers being flayed. ‘Then I shall do my best to see this as a reminder of how a friend came to my assistance.’
Fjord rubs the back of his neck. ‘You know, I, uh, I tried that with Yasha once. The whole bampfing-to-safety thing. She’d been charmed, so it didn’t work, because she wasn’t willing.’ He closes his eyes and turns his face up to the water. ‘It worked with you. It’s a good sign, I guess.’
‘I was indeed very willing not to be swallowed by a behir.’
‘Yeah, that was meant to be some, uh, some metaphor thing about you being willing to let people help you. I don’t know if it worked, I’m not Caduceus.’
Essek smiles. ‘Well. I appreciate it all the same.’
‘Any time. And, hey, if you’re ever stuck with the whole being-trapped-in-a-lie, scared-to-trust-your-friends thing, just throw a magical item into some lava and piss off a god. It worked for me.’
‘I think I have disrespected enough ancient magical objects and mysterious not-exactly-deities to be getting on with.’
‘Eh, fair. Still, if you’re ever getting restless and those Beacons really look like they could do with being chucked into a volcano, just let me know.’
Essek never thought he would be able to laugh about his treason. But here he is, standing in the sunlight and the falling water, laughing – and everything about it, from Fjord’s spell to Fjord’s jokes to his earnest attempts at advice that make Essek feel so very not alone – all of it is an act of love.
To Essek's surprise, it isn’t a metaphor, or a piece of confusing but soothing advice, that forms Caduceus’s declaration of love.
Instead, it’s a pendant in the shape of a fern leaf, held out to Essek one morning while the rest of the Nein are bickering over exactly where exactly they want to be teleported to. It’s carved from smooth black stone, warm to the touch in an electric way that tells Essek instantly that it’s enchanted.
‘I got this from a friend of ours in Zadash,’ Caduceus explains. ‘Well. Four friends, really. I thought it would be nice for you to have something to stop the sunlight from being so unpleasant for you. I know you’ve got Jester’s parasol, but… everyone should get to stand with the sun on their face, now and again.’
Essek attempts to form an adequate response. He fails, and settles, feebly, on, ‘I’m surprised they make amulets to counteract sunlight sensitivity within the Empire.’
‘I don’t think they do, usually. I used Stone Shape to carve out the pendant, and then I took it to our friends and asked if they could fix up the enchantment for me.’
‘Caduceus.’ Essek swallows hard, running his finger around the pendant’s edges. ‘To commission this must have cost – enchantments like this are rare, and difficult, and for you to spend so much, just for the sake of me being able to stand in the sunlight –’
Caduceus tilts his head, smiling. ‘Well, what else do you have money for? I mean, Jester tells me you once spent a lot of gold dust giving her a floating chair to climb on.’
That is not exactly what happened, but Essek doesn’t argue. Caduceus shifts around to stand behind him, takes the ends of the strap from Essek’s hands, and ties the pendant in place for him. ‘I’m sorry it clashes a little.’
It does look rather incongruous – hewn stone against the intricate silver of his mantle and jewellery. The Umavi would never wear such a thing, and the thought makes Essek feel bizarrely self-satisfied.
‘It is fine. More than fine. Thank you, Caduceus.’ Essek tucks it inside his cloak, letting it rest snug against his jacket. ‘If I may ask – why a fern?’
‘Well, I’ve always liked ferns. My aunt had this old story about how, if you found a fern flower, you’d have fortune on your side for as long as you carried it. So now you’ve got your own, to carry around with you.’ He turns back around to face Essek, still smiling. ‘Besides, ferns are tough. You get some that’ll shrivel up for a hundred years during a drought – and then just one drop of water, and back to life they come, flourishing better than they ever did before.’
‘Despite the comparison to a shrivelled fern, I appreciate the vote of confidence.’
Caduceus chuckles, pats his shoulder, and gestures to the rest of the Nein, still bickering over the maps that Fjord is pulling from his bag while the others shout that he’s got the wrong one. ‘Not so shrivelled anymore. You found your water.’
Later that day, Essek lies back in the grass with the sun warm against his skin, a drowsy comfort settling through his body. Caduceus’s pendant rests against his chest – a gift, an act of protection, an act of love.
Veth would likely not appreciate Essek comparing her to Fjord. But like Fjord, she declares her love by saving him.
There is a dragon. An ancient white dragon that crashes down upon them one day in the Greying Wildlands, howling about thieves and insults and how it knows their scent, blasting them with a barrage of ice that might have frozen Essek’s blood solid if he hadn’t twisted away in time to miss the worst of it. A minute later the dragon is bloodied and torn, and his friends are more bloodied and more torn. Then the tail lashes around and slams into Caleb, who hurtles through the air, slumps into the snow, and lies still.
Essek’s brain goes blank behind a howling, silent scream, and he tears into the dragon with everything he has left in him, and he almost has its head crushed inside a Dark Star when a clawed foot descends and pins him into the snow. The talons sink into his chest, the snarling face is an inch from his, and oh, Light, not like this, please, please –
‘Hey! Frosty! Guess what I’ve still got from your little collection!’
The dragon’s head snaps around.
Veth is standing on the snow, her hiding placed abandoned, carried onto the surface by her water-walking ring. Her lips are twisted into something that’s half a grin and half a snarl. One hand is clasped high above her head.
She’s holding nothing. But the dragon – convinced by whatever illusion magic with which Veth has ensnared its mind – screams, a righteous, furious howl that rebounds upon the mountain walls. It tears its claws loose from Essek’s chest, and surges in Veth's direction.
Essek doesn’t get a good look at everything that happens next, because his blood is soaking the snow and it’s all he can do to stand. When he gets upright, it’s to see the dragon on Veth, claws arcing through the air, teeth snapping – and then Yasha’s blade and Jester’s spiritual weapon and Fjord’s sword are descending, and the dragon is writhing, sending up clouds of snow in every direction as its tail flails and its legs kick. One last screeching howl – then it twitches, and lies limp.
Jester runs to Caleb, and Caduceus hurries to scoop Veth up, conjuring pink lichen over the slashes torn through her flesh. By the time Essek reaches her she’s sitting up, wiping snow and blood from her mouth.
‘When Luc asks about what we’ve been doing,’ she says, her voice understandably strained, ‘you’d all better back me up when I tell him that I fucking Phantasmal Forced a dragon into thinking I still had its shiny dispel magic rock.’
She did. A spell with a one-in-a-million chance of success, and a risk with a one-in-a-million chance of survival. All to save Essek.
‘Veth,’ he says, stunned, because of all them, she was the last one he expected to risk something like this, not for him, and he cannot say anything else, and he stares at her – and she spits out blood and glares at him.
‘What the fuck are you staring at me for? I told you. Welcome to the Mighty Nein.’
She almost died for him. It is a promise kept, an invitation upheld. And it is, Essek knows, an act of love.
At times, Essek fears that Beauregard would never tell him. Once she does, he realises that he needn’t have worried. Beau’s heart is something that simmers close to the surface, whether in grief or anger or love.
He knocks on the Xhorhaus door one afternoon, and Beau answers, rubbing her eyes as she leans against the doorframe. ‘’Sup?’
‘I just came to see if you were all at home.’ Essek squints past her at the deserted corridor. ‘It is… unusually quiet today.’
‘Yeah, we just got back from the other side of Wildemount. Everyone’s still sleeping off the time distance.’
‘But not you?’
‘Can’t sleep. Caleb and Caduceus cast Enlarge and Holy Weapon on me an hour ago. I’m still kinda buzzed.’ She stands aside to let him in. ‘If you want to talk wizard shit with Caleb, he’s probably going to be out of it for the next twelve hours.’
‘Actually, I was… planning to head to the basement.’
Halfway to the living room door, Beau stops. ‘Some family shit go down?’
‘My brother visited from Bazzoxan. The Umavi decided this called for a family reunion. Things became – fraught, shall we say.’
There’s a pause, in which Beau stands there, eyeing Essek over her shoulder. Then she jerks her head in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Come on. I’m getting us both a drink.’
Beau gathers a bottle and two chipped glasses from the cupboards, then leads him into the living room. She pours out the wine, thunks the bottle down on the table, and slumps back against the couch. ‘I guess I don’t have anything to say except what you said to me. You don’t have to live up to her standards. Just your own.’
‘I know.’ The words come out more sharply than he intended, and he raises his glass, so that he doesn’t have to look at Beau’s face.
To his relief, she doesn’t seem too stung. ‘Seems like your own standards are pretty harsh too. Maybe you should cut yourself some slack. Just a little.’
Essek raises his eyebrows. ‘I never thought to hear you saying that to me.’
‘Yeah, well.’ She takes a hefty gulp from her glass. ‘Been thinking a lot about why I’ve been so mad at you, and don’t get me wrong, it’s mostly to do with the whole, you know, starting-a-fucking-war thing. And I really hope I don’t need to tell you how much it fucking hurt. Finding out that the guy who we had dinner with and told secrets to was lying to us. But…’ Beau thumps her head back against the cushions. ‘I guess I was kind of mad at myself. For, you know, being an Expositor who couldn’t see that her friend was the traitor she was looking for.’
Essek stares into his glass. I’m an Expositor now, she told him, on the brightest evening of his life. Feeling pretty fucking great. So much pride in her voice – and he took that away from her.
‘I am the one to blame for that. Not you.’
She snorts. ‘Yeah. You are. But – I guess I was hard on you because I was being hard on myself. And not just ‘cause of the Expositor thing. You’re someone else who had shitty parents and ended up making a lot of shitty choices. And when we found out about you, I’d just been dealing with some family shit, and… you’re too much like me, Essek. I wasn’t ready to give myself a break. So I didn’t give you one.’
Essek sets down his glass, hard enough to send a few drops of wine jumping over the edge. ‘You are not like me. You care too much to be like me. I cared about nothing beyond myself for a century. But you, Beauregard – I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you react to anything with apathy.’
Beau’s mouth twitches into a smile. ‘Yeah, well. You wouldn’t have thought that if you’d met me a year ago.’
She grabs the bottle and refills Essek’s glass, even though he had only taken a few sips. ‘And I guess neither of us have met the people we’re going to be in a year’s time. Caduceus said something once about there being…’ She pulls a face. ‘Greatness in me. And I don’t feel great, but – I’ve had some time to get some distance, and I’m going to give myself a chance to see if he was right. And I guess if I’m doing that, I can give you a break until you’ve had the chance to figure yourself out, too. So – you know. Give yourself a bit of a break sometimes.’
Essek clutches his glass a little tighter. She has been so relentless, Beauregard, in her push for him to prove himself. He has resented it; unfairly, he knows. But now, if Beauregard thinks he is allowed to relax – even just for one afternoon, with wine and a friend – he will believe her.
He almost believes he might deserve it.
‘And you know what?’ She grins him over the rim of her glass. ‘Your mom might be an Umavi, but I bet she never straight-up decided to start caring just because seven assholes marched into her life and started fucking shit up and inviting her around for dinner.’
‘No. I suppose not.’
Beau takes another sip. ‘Bet your mom’s a shitty drinking partner, too.’
Essek chuckles, and raises his glass. ‘To caring?’
‘To caring,’ Beau says, and they chink their glasses.
And so they talk, about families and expectations and younger brothers who might just turn out all right, despite everything – until at last Beau falls asleep in mid-sentence on the couch with her mouth hanging open. Essek washes the glasses, puts them away, and drapes a tablecloth (the closest he can find to a blanket at short notice) over his sleeping friend, with a smile tugging at his lips. She trusted him enough to fall asleep in his presence, even after everything.
And strange as it may seem, it’s an act of love. Few things that Beauregard does are not.
And then there is Caleb.
There is a problem with acknowledging anything Caleb does as an act of love. Namely: Essek is trying very hard not to let himself do that. Because if he starts, he is very afraid that he won’t be able to stop.
Caleb would not want this. He would not want the dizziness of feelings that rises inside Essek when Caleb enters the basement, sees Essek struggling, at Jester’s urging, to recount her magical-plum story to Caduceus – and smiles, broad and crinkle-eyed. Caleb would not want the drowsy contentment that settles in Essek’s stomach when Caleb sees him sitting among the flowers with Yasha, and holds Essek’s gaze for a few seconds before turning away.
He would not want the aching weight of feeling that heats Essek’s throat when Caleb, barely healed, releases Veth from his arms and staggers past the white dragon’s body to grasp Essek’s shoulder. ‘Stay at the back,’ he says, almost hissing it, his fingers pressing down as if his touch alone is all that’s stopping Essek from falling back and bleeding out into the snow. ‘You are like me, you get hurt too easily, you’re meant to stay at the back.’
Essek almost points out that firstly, Caleb was the one who actually fell unconscious, and secondly, there is no ‘back’ when you’re fighting something that can fly – but he doesn’t. He is too busy staring at the snow in Caleb’s hair, the blood on his coat, the fierceness in his eyes. He wants to throw his arms around Caleb’s shoulders and cling to him and feel Caleb’s heartbeat against his chest so that knows they’re both still alive. He wants to knot his fingers into that snow-flecked hair, he wants, he wants –
He wants to kiss him.
And he is so sure that Caleb can see it, as if it’s leaking out of him like his blood onto the snow. But he cannot want it, because Caleb does not trust him.
So Essek tells himself. For a time.
It’s a spell that becomes Caleb’s act of love, in the end. His love so often takes the form of magic: a Polymorph on Veth when she’s trapped and wounded. Fortune’s Favour cast on Caduceus, when he announces that he’s making Caleb’s favourite dinner. A Haste cast on Beau the day after Caleb kills someone with fire, and Beau sits with him until he comes back to reality.
It’s a silent language, and one that Essek understands well. He was doing the same with all those teleports, after all.
He doesn’t expect (can’t let himself expect) to have that language spoken to him. But then one day they’re in a ruin, and someone triggers a trap and the room’s walls start closing in. Essek runs to the magical lock that seals the room shut, mind racing to puzzle out the sigils and glyphs. A hand touches his arm, pulling him roughly around – and there’s Caleb, pressing a pearl to his forehead, whispering the incantation words of Fortune’s Favour.
His eyes hold Essek’s for a long moment, and the look in them is more than confidence. It is trust. Utter faith that Essek can save them.
Essek breathes in and turns back to the door. In his head, the puzzle clicks into place. The lock falls open under his hands.
And then it never stops. A Haste cast on him because he was struck by an idea and complained aloud about not being able to write as fast as he could think – only to find his hands speeding up, and Caleb grinning at him. A plunge over a cliff that’s caught by Caleb’s Feather Fall. Fortune’s Favour, again and again, the pearl resting against the place where Caleb’s lips once pressed.
These are acts of trust. Acts of protection. But not love, Essek tells himself again and again, even as his breathing falters and his cheeks heat. Not love.
And then the Scourger comes.
Later, Essek will admire the Assembly’s guile. It was a clever move, sending the assassin for him while he was with the Nein. If he’d been found dead in Rosohna, eyes would have turned to the Empire, wondering how the Shadowhand could be murdered in his home. The peace would have shattered down its fault lines. But who could blame the Empire if Essek got himself killed by gallivanting about Wildemount with a pack of mercenaries? Perhaps the Scourger even intended to frame the Nein for his death: eight birds killed with one dagger. It was a good plan – and it even worked, to a point.
Later, Essek will think this. In the moment, there’s only terror.
He has a half-second to react when his night-time watch is interrupted by the dome blinking out, dispelled by a silent cast. Half a second as the rush of air and the impacts on the grass betray the assassin’s invisible approach. A few months ago, Essek would have wasted his half-second of breath on an incantation. Would have tried to save himself with a spell he’d never have had time to finish.
Instead, Essek roars, ‘Mighty Nein!’
Then a jolt of impact, a screaming punch of pain through his neck, the hard slam of his back against the ground. A blur of movement as his friends surge to their feet, Jester’s voice howling his name. Another impact, this time deep into his chest, and the breath leaves him in a choking shudder as the dagger withdraws.
Fire erupts. Shimmering insects swirl in Essek’s periphery. Fjord roars something and green light clusters around the assassin, wrenching her out of invisibility, and Beau tackles her and wrestles her away from Essek. Too late, though. The colours are already dimming.
Essek heaves for breath, and finds only blood. The world is splintering away. Grey haze oozes across his vision, fading into black –
Fading –
And then he’s spluttering for air in Jester’s arms, and she’s holding him and gripping his hands and whispering, ‘You’re okay, you’re okay, oh my god, Essek,’ in a voice choked with panic and tears. Caduceus is pressing a healing spell into Essek’s torn throat. Caleb is gripping his shoulder, like he did after the dragon battle, his face bloodless.
‘What –’ Essek starts to say, then stops. Partly because his neck howls with pain as he tries to speak. Mostly because he has noticed the shards of diamond lying on his chest.
Oh. Oh.
His skin goes cold, and his next few breaths leave him in a panicked, shuddering rush. Jester squeezes his hands a little tighter. ‘We got you back. We’ll always get you back.’
‘You called for us.’ Caleb’s voice is raw and hollow. ‘We answered. Even after we were too late.’
And he should protest that it was a waste of a diamond, tell them that they didn’t need to do this, but he is so, so selfishly glad that they did. So overwhelmed that they would wrest him back from death’s hands. So he blinks back tears – he can pretend they’re from the shock of dying, if he tries hard enough – and says, ‘Thank you.’
‘No more solo watches.’ Beau is standing with her staff resting on the rather mangled form of the dead Scourger. ‘Not for anyone, and especially not for Essek.’
Caleb lets go of Essek’s shoulder. ‘Did you finish your trance?’
Essek nods.
‘Then I will sit up with you.’
And maybe it’s foolish to leave the two wizards, one of whom just died (he died, he was dead) on watch together, but no one questions it. So they sit in silence together at the edge of the re-cast dome. A few minutes pass; then Caleb lets out a long, unsteady breath, and rubs hard at his chin. ‘Essek. Don’t run.’
Essek’s guts twist. Caleb is staring steadily at him, and Essek tries to meet his eyes but he ends up staring at his own hands, of course, like a coward.
‘And what else should I do? They know that I am travelling with you. In Rosohna, I am protected, both by the wards upon my home and by the potential for my death to restart a war.’ He swallows back a bitter laugh at the thought of causing a war twice, once by living, once by dying. ‘So they will target me here, where you are. I warned you once about getting too close, and I was selfish, and closed the distance myself. And now, if I stay, I am asking you to die for me.’
‘I told you before. So be it.’ Caleb almost snarls it, and now Essek has no choice but to look up, to let Caleb hold his gaze. ‘You are not going to shut us out of your life and call it protecting us. I have seen you come too far to watch you make yourself into an island again. You are more than that, and you deserve more than that.’
Essek snorts, and Caleb’s eyes narrow.
‘If you cannot accept that, then accept that we will give you what you feel you don’t deserve. Always. Because you are one of the Mighty Nein.’ Caleb looks away at last, staring past the wall of the dome. ‘I understand wanting to run. I do. The trouble with having friends is that you have to care about them. But you must know that we are invested in you, Essek. That we care about you.’
And Essek remembers ice cream in Jester’s blanket fort, and Yasha sitting with him among the flowers, Fjord’s magic cleaning the dust from him, Caduceus’s amulet letting him stand in the sunlight, Veth throwing herself between him and a dragon, Beau grinning at him over their glasses. His eyes sting. ‘I know.’
‘So don’t go.’
‘And risk your lives, after everything you have given me? I have been reckless enough with your feelings and safety already –’
Caleb’s hand flashes out towards him. There’s a spool of silvery cord clasped between his fingers.
For a half-second, Essek’s back outside the mansion in Nicodranas, and Caleb is grasping his arm and closing manacles about his wrist. Essek jolts away, just as he did then – but instead of seizing him, Caleb murmurs an incantation, and the platinum thread rises from his hand, snaking out through the air and snapping into place around Essek’s wrist. The other end loops around Caleb’s own wrist, shimmering over the scars.
There’s a jolt to Essek’s insides, like he’s being wrenched out of his own skin. And he grits his teeth and tries to fight the spell, but – he has never been particularly strong, when it comes to fighting his friends.
The tug of magic envelops him. The cord gleams white around their wrists. The Tether Essence spell is complete, and Essek sits silently with every beat of his heart and breath in his lungs bound to Caleb’s. Knowing that if he ran, and an assassin’s knife came for him, the Nein could heal him through Caleb and keep him alive. Knowing that any wound he took would blossom over Caleb’s body.
He closes his eyes. ‘I should not have taught you this spell.’
Caleb says nothing. His hand is still raised from the casting; the platinum cord is pulled taut between them.
‘You know this will only last an hour,’ Essek tells him.
‘Then I have fifty-nine minutes left to talk some sense into you.’
Essek laughs, a sound that’s strained and desperate even to his own ears. ‘You will be safer if I leave. What can you tell me that will outweigh that?’
‘The same thing that I thought when I saw you on the ground with a knife in your neck.’ Caleb swallows. And then, very slowly, stopping after every word as if each syllable is an effort: ‘I don’t want you to go.’
The words are somehow huge in the quiet, like they’re filling the dome. Essek closes his eyes, and closes his hand over the place where the platinum thread is looped around his wrist.
‘None of us want it, Essek. That is why Jester snatched you back from death’s jaws. And you don’t want to be alone again. Do you?’
There is no lying to Caleb, not now. Not with the spell knitting their flesh together. ‘No.’
‘So don’t be. What is it you want?’
Essek clenches his teeth, so hard that his jaw shudders. I want you to be safe, and I want to never be without you all, and I want your precious, gentle little acts of love –
He also wants to kiss Caleb again, a hot and aching urge that makes him dig his fingertips into his jacket and squeeze his eyes shut. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes. Why would it not?’
And the words are so firm and fierce that Essek feels something fracture inside him, some barrier he’s been keeping raised for months. ‘Because – you told me once that I was not born with venom in my veins. At the time, all I could think was... what does it matter? The venom is still there. But being around you, it's like you are somehow burning out every last drop of poison in my blood and filling my veins with – sunlight. Something that is warm, and beautiful, and of course I want it, but – I wasn't made to touch it, Caleb. It doesn’t matter how badly I want to feel that warmth. It was never meant for me.’
There it is, then. His own declaration of love, even if he cannot say the words themselves. He stares at his hands, his cheeks burning.
Then Caleb’s finger slips under Essek’s chin and turns his face upward.
Silence. They are sitting so close. Close enough for the clouds formed by their breathing to mingle in the cool night air. A few of Caleb’s hairs have fallen loose from his ponytail, stirring forward with the wind so that the tips brush Essek’s face.
It occurs to Essek that something could happen, if he leaned in now. If he closed the distance.
More terrifying still, he thinks that Caleb might let it.
But he has never been kissed before, and that’s enough to check him, and the realisation that he is wanting again and that Caleb might be wanting too – that’s enough to paralyse him. It is too much to act on, not so soon.
So Essek lets his eyes flicker away and lets the moment pass. Still a coward, then.
After a moment, Caleb moves his hand away from Essek’s chin, and places a fingertip against the place where Caduceus’s pendant rests over Essek’s breastbone. ‘Maybe you weren’t made for the sunlight. And that is why you have friends who make sure that you get to enjoy it anyway. Because what you want matters.’
Essek swallows. Plays with the edges of the platinum cord, binding their wrists like a handfast.
And he understands why Caleb cannot let him go. Because the Tether Essence is just a confirmation of what was already between them, right from the moment that Caleb’s lips touched his forehead in the hold of that ship. A tie that binds them so deeply that allowing Caleb to leave his life would be like watching his own lungs walk out of his chest. And quite suddenly, the hour ahead in which his flesh and Caleb’s will be bound feels precious, intimate, sacred –
Essek sucks in a breath, and tries to rein back his thoughts into something approaching rationality. Quite aside from the minor detail of him being in love with Caleb Widogast, there is no point in leaving. The Assembly is aware that the Mighty Nein know their secret. Essek’s friends will not be safe, even if he leaves. And when the inevitable confrontation comes – then where can Essek possibly be, but standing at the Nein’s side?
‘Don’t run,’ Caleb says again. ‘I am not saying stay forever. Just – don’t shut us out. Don’t walk away from us.’
Essek breathes out. ‘I won’t. If you’ll believe my word, Caleb, you have it.’
And Caleb smiles, for the first time since Essek’s shout woke him. ‘You have lied about many things. Caring for us was never one of them. I believe you.’
They sit together for the rest of the hour, bound by a spell that is a silent act of love.
Morning comes, and Fjord lights up his sword and scans the area around their camp for invisible assassins before he’s even dressed. Beau paces back and forth, then wheels around and announces that they need to have a talk right now about how they’re going to keep Essek safe, that they've got to find a way to stop these assholes from getting to him even when he's in Rosohna – and Jester, who has barely spoken all morning, grasps Essek’s arm and says, 'Don't go back, Essek.'
She tells him that the Mighty Nein love him. And Essek hugs her tight and thinks, I know.
He does, in fact, go back to Rosohna that day – so that he can inform the Bright Queen of his impending resignation. And two weeks later – once his successor is in place, the paperwork is filed, and he has stood firm in the face of his mother's rage – he shoulders his backpack and meets his friends outside his home. Jester jumps and waves as he opens the door, and Caduceus says ‘hey,’ and Beau says ‘'sup?’, and Caleb smiles as if Essek’s approach is the brightest thing he’s ever seen.
There is no hurry. He and Caleb have plenty of time. Time to discuss what almost happened between them that night. Time for Essek to reflect on all those moments shared with Caleb, and realise that he was not just seeing what he wanted to see. Time enough for Essek to work out how he might put all that wanting into words.
For now, Essek smiles and says, ‘So. Where to?’
Welcome to the Mighty Nein, Veth told him, a lifetime ago, and Essek flinched away. Now he looks at his friends, who love him, waiting for him, and he thinks: yes. I am.