ii.
She has stopped showing Kallandras visions, but Evayne's soul crystal still glows, the only source of light beneath the Lady's dark face. It casts weird shadows on Kallandras's features, making his cheeks more hollow, his brow more furrowed. He looks like the older man he will become. May become, if she succeeds here.
"You're asking me to betray my brothers," he says. It should be an anguished cry, but she can read no emotion in his voice.
"To save the world," she agrees.
"They won't thank me for that." He meets her gaze, unblinking, over the crystal that is all that separates them. "Do you understand what you're asking me to give up? What brotherhood means?"
She doesn't. She is Evayne a'Neamis; she is and will always be alone. Or she thought she would be, when she made the choice to step on this road months before. Until she met an older version of this man, hair white instead of gold, who promised her that there would be companionship in her future.
She does not know what brotherhood means, but she knows what that promise meant to her. And so she says, "It means the price is beyond what I can pay. But you are needed. And I will not leave you to walk this road alone. We will be a—a fellowship of our own, of sorts."
His eyes are very wide, and, in the crystal's blue-white light, pale. She leans forward, closes the few inches between them, and kisses him. It is an awkward press of mouth against mouth; she is unskilled at this, does not know which way to tilt her head.
When she draws back, his expression is just as blank as before. But he says, "I will come with you," and when she offers him her hand he takes it and follows her down the narrow road.
Already, she can see her own path diverging from his in the future. Already, she knows she has lied.
iv.
She is so near, so very near, the end of her long road, and so Evayne is startled when her next step leaves her behind a building that has not stood for decades. She cannot think of why her path has led her back so far—until she sees the body, crumpled and bleeding, that lies in the shadows.
"You never told me about this," she mutters as she drops to Kallandras's side.
He brings his knife half-up before he recognizes her, grimaces, and drops it. The wounds, she is relieved to realize, are not as deep as she first feared. Only one slash across his chest gives her any real concern, and she begins to turn what remains of his cloak into bandages, using his dropped knife to shred it into strips.
"Why are you doing this?" Kallandras asks. "Why do you pretend to care?" She thinks he means his tone to be light, mocking, but in his half-conscious state even a bardborn's ability to control his voice is limited. She can hear anguish beneath it, and it is not all from the physical pain.
She keeps moving her hands methodically, though inwardly she flinches. It has been years since she dealt with a Kallandras this young; she has forgotten how very angry he once was.
"I care, Kallandras."
"As a tradesman for his tools."
She wonders if he has found Salla yet; if he understands that it is possible to come to love one's tools. Possible, and yet unwise. But his voice is wavering as he lapses back into unconsciousness, and now is no time to try to explain. He does not deserve to be burdened with her pain; she has laid enough on him already.
Kallandras grunts as Evayne ties off the last strip of fabric around his chest, but nothing more. She shifts his head into her lap and brushes his hair away, checking his temples for bruising. She should bring him to the healerborn, but she knows her road will not let her stay so long, can already feel it pulling her away. All she can do is tend his wounds, press a kiss against his blood-stained curls, and watch over him for as long as she remains.
iii.
The back hallways of the house are empty when Evayne steps into them. She slips down them quietly, following the rumble of conversation and thread of music that spill out from the ballrooms at the front of the house. As she moves, her robe shifts from the deep blue of her calling to a darker hue that might, at a distance, pass for those of the Order of Knowledge.
It is not a disguise that will hold for long, and she will be scrutinized here, in the house of the powerful. She has no invitation, no business—save the business she always has. But she follows the music, and there, at its end, is a golden-haired bard, looking fresh-faced and young for all that his years, she thinks, currently match her own. Kallandras lets the last notes linger, shares a smile or three with the admiring ladies around him, then lets his eyes catch Evayne's, as though by chance.
"Ah, Evayne!" Kallandras tucks his lute away, bows with a flourish, and presses a kiss to the fingers of her hand. "Just who I hoped to see. If you will pardon us, ladies—" and, with more smiles and light laughter, he draws them away and back into the corridors from which she came.
Out of sight of the crowd, the smile drops from his face. "Evayne." No false joy, this time, only business. "And what services do you require, this time?"
She takes to the shift easily and answers him; she is used to it, after so many years of meetings. But the warmth on her hand still lingers.
i.
The Oracle's words are still ringing in Evayne's ears when the ground twists beneath her and, between one step and the next, she goes from sun-swept canyon to barely lit room. Or it was barely lit, before her arrival. The crystal in her hands throws everything—hangings, stone walls, lavishly carved bed, and the old man who stands beside it with a knife in his hand—into stark relief.
She throws up a hand in defense and staggers backward, but one pace brings her to the wall.
"Calm down, Evayne." He has already set the knife on the smooth bedspread, and moves toward her with his hands empty and raised.
"Who—who are you?"
He runs a hand, self-conscious, through frost white, curling hair. "You don't know me?"
"No!" She draws a breath, clenches her soul crystal for strength. "No. I've never seen you before."
"Never? My hair was golden, once." She shakes her head, and his voice softens. "You must be very new to our task, then."
"My task," she says, bitterly. "My road, to walk alone."
He is near enough to touch, now, and he reaches to push her hood half-back from her forehead. She is too off-balance to object. "So young," he murmurs. "No, Evayne. You do not need to walk it alone. You will have others beside you. Remember that."
"Who are you?" she asks. Already, the world is beginning to fade around her.
He leans forward and presses his lips to her brow, then steps back. "Kallandras."
She steps toward him, and he vanishes, replaced by dust-strewn road.
v.
They sit together on the bench, like any other old couple, watching the sea. Kallandras holds his lute in his lap, but its three remaining strings are still.
"I saw your younger self, before the battle," he says eventually.
"I remember."
"Ah, of course." He tries to pluck a note; stops, when the sound is discordant. "Do you remember anything after today?"
"Of course not. If I'd known we would win . . ."
"You would have been happier," he says lightly, though he knows well what she means to say.
"I would have fought less hard," Evayne corrects. She has never been one to lie to herself, or to let another lie on her behalf.
He stops toying with the lute and reaches across the bench to take her hand in his. Both are ringless. "No, Evayne," he says, speaking truth into his words. "Nothing could have made you do that."
She meets his eyes, then looks away to where the seabirds dive in the spray. "Perhaps." Her hand tightens on his, traces the scars that mark his palm.
"And I would not have wanted it to," he says softly, still speaking a bard's truth. "I have seen the beginning and the end now, Evayne. I have no regrets."
"You don't wish you could have—"
He remembers a lesson in the Labyrinth, long ago. "Envy is not regret. I made my choices, Evayne. Not you. I."
"Thank you," she says, at last. She shivers slightly as the wind turns and blows the spray toward them, hunches closer under her cloak. It no longer holds mystery and shadows, only warmth for a woman past her prime.
"Perhaps it is time to go inside?"
"I don't know, Kallandras." There is a smile on her lips, rarely seen. If there is a hint of bitterness to it, he does her the courtesy of ignoring it. "I don't know what happens next."
"Well." He tucks his lute under his arm, stands, and offers her his hand. "Shall we find out?"