Chapter 35: Opening the Portal

(I painted this in Procreate using the HB Pencil and the Oil Paint brush - Chaiga T. Cheska)
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Oren and Bran crouched over their brother, who lay unconscious where he had fallen, half on his side with a strained, pained expression fixed upon his face. The grass beneath him was flattened, the afternoon light catching on the fine dust stirred by his collapse, as though the world itself had paused to watch.

For a heartbeat, Bran could not remember a single thing Yilda had taught him. Everything seemed to slow, as if time had thickened around them. Oren was leaning over Tavik, shaking him gently, calling his name as though from a great distance, whilst Tavik lay limp and unresponsive, his body slack in a way that frightened Bran more than he wanted to admit.

Oren’s voice cut through the haze. “Bran, focus. I need your healing skills now.”

Bran blinked hard, drew in a shuddering breath, and lurched closer. The world sharpened around him as he forced himself into the familiar motions, his hands finding the actions before his mind quite caught up. He lifted one of Tavik’s eyelids, checking the pupil as Yilda had shown him. He pressed his ear to Tavik’s chest, listening for the rise and fall of breath. He gripped his brother’s wrist, feeling for the pulse that beat warm and steady under the skin.

He looked up at Oren, his voice low but steady. “His pulse is strong. Breathing’s steady. I can’t find a wound.” He hesitated. “But something knocked him under, and I can’t tell why he looks like he’s in pain.”

Oren leaned over Tavik again and gave his cheek a gentle slap, but Tavik’s head only lolled to one side, and he did not stir. A flicker of fear crossed Oren’s face before he pushed Bran aside, gathered Tavik under the arms, and hauled him upright. He hooked Tavik’s limp arm over his shoulder, braced his stance, and lifted him fully onto his back as he rose. Tavik hung there, unresisting, his weight heavy and unsettling in a way that made Bran’s stomach twist.

Oren surged towards the guest house with long, determined strides, and Bran stumbled after him, breath catching, worry tightening his chest. The village green blurred around them, the soft voices of the Burrowback children fading into a hush behind them.

Thessaly had already shepherded the little ones aside. She watched Oren carry Tavik with wide, troubled eyes, then turned to Bran with a look that held both concern and quiet resolve. “I will fetch my uncle and our healer and send them to your brother.”

Bran managed a weak smile. “Thank you,” he said, and hurried after Oren.

Inside the guest house, Oren lowered Tavik onto the small sofa. Bran found himself absurdly thinking that Tavik would have laughed at the sight of his long legs actually fitting on it. The thought only made the heaviness in Bran’s chest deepen. He watched as Oren shifted Tavik into a more comfortable position, then leaned over him again, calling his name with an urgency that seemed to vibrate in the air. Tavik did not respond.

Oren turned sharply to Bran, dropped to his eye level, and gripped his shoulders with both hands. His voice was low, fierce, and steady. “You have Portalsight. You can try to reach him, the way Nix would.”

Bran tried to pull away from Oren, but his brother held him fast. Bran gave him a pained, almost pleading look, then glanced past him to where Tavik lay motionless on the sofa, his stillness far more frightening than any wound.

“Oren, I cannot do what Nix does. Portalsight only opened a portal for me in the Eldertree, and I only saw the way forward in the Labyrinth because Nix was guiding me.”

Oren pushed Bran down into the nearest chair, his hands clamped firmly on Bran’s shoulders. His stare was fierce, almost blazing, as though he could will Bran into being more than he believed himself to be. “You have to try something, Bran. Whatever has happened to Tavik is tied directly to Nix.”

Bran lifted his hands and gripped Oren’s wrists, trying to pry them away, his breath coming too fast, his chest tight with fear. “I cannot, Oren. You are asking the impossible. I have had my Portalsight for less than a few days.” He looked up at his brother, eyes wide, trying to make him understand the sheer terror of being asked to reach into a magic he barely knew how to touch.

Oren released him, and both brothers looked up as the door opened. Timatticus stepped inside with Harthos close behind, and a smaller Burrowback followed them, carrying a worn medicine bag that clinked softly with vials. The air shifted as they entered, as though the little guest house had drawn a breath.

Harthos came straight to Oren and Bran, his expression grave. He gestured to the unfamiliar Burrowback, an elderly male whose white spines gleamed like frost. Bran was startled to realise that this healer was actually shorter than Oren, his stooped frame giving him the look of someone who had spent a lifetime bending over the wounded.

“Our healer, Jorindo, is here to help your brother and see what can be done. I understand Tavik collapsed during your class, yes?” Harthos said.

Jorindo gave them a brief nod, then moved to Tavik with quiet purpose. His hands were steady as he felt along Tavik’s head and neck, pressing gently at points Bran recognised from Yilda’s lessons. He lifted one of Tavik’s eyelids, studying the pupil with a practised eye.

Bran rose at once, slipping between Oren and Harthos to stand at Jorindo’s side. He watched every movement, desperate for any sign that Tavik might stir.

Oren remained with Harthos and Timatticus, all three of them watching the healer work. The room felt too small, too still, the air close with the particular tension of people waiting for news they were not sure they wanted.

Oren turned to Harthos, his voice low and tight. “Whatever has happened to Tavik is connected to our cousin, Nix. I’m worried, and I cannot help either of them.”

Harthos placed a steady hand on Oren’s shoulder. “Perhaps this is the moment you allow others to help. It is not always up to you, Oren.”

Oren held Harthos’s gaze for a brief moment, then turned back to where Jorindo was finishing his examination. The healer straightened with a soft creak of his spine and faced them. His expression was calm, almost gentle. “Your brother has nothing wrong that is physical, but there is a magical signature emanating from his chest that speaks of something else holding him under.”

Bran leaned into Oren’s side, looking up at him with a mixture of fear and vindication. “I told you, Oren. I said the same thing.” Oren kept his eyes on Jorindo and gave Bran a sharp, irritated look. Bran dropped his gaze at once, stepping away and lowering himself to the floor beside the sofa.

The low murmur of Oren speaking with the chieftain, the healer, and Harthos filled the room like a distant rumble of thunder, but Bran barely heard any of it. He sat cross-legged on the floor and studied Tavik’s still face, the faint crease between his brows, the way his fingers lay curled and unmoving against the cushion. A heavy ache settled in Bran’s chest.

He whispered, “I wish you were awake, Tav.” He drew his knees up, rested his chin on them, and wrapped his arms around his legs, watching his brother as though sheer will might pull Tavik back to them.

Then, faintly, something flickered.

A tiny spark leapt between Tavik’s limp fingers, no brighter than a firefly. Bran’s eyes widened. He sat up straighter, heart thudding, watching as the spark faded into nothing. He felt foolish for hoping, yet hope rose anyway, fragile and trembling.

He leaned closer and whispered again, eyes fixed on Tavik’s hand. “Make those sparks again, Tav, if you can hear me talking to you.”

Sparks flickered at once between Tavik’s fingers, bright and brief as fireflies, and Bran’s breath caught so sharply he almost sobbed with relief. Instead, he sprang to his feet, spun round, and said, voice cracking, “Tavik is talking with sparks. He can hear me.”

Oren was beside him in an instant, dropping to his knees and leaning over Tavik’s still form. Tavik had not stirred, not even a twitch, but the faint scorch of magic lingered in the air around his hand. Oren looked at Bran, then back at Tavik, and said, steady and clear, “Tav, if you can hear me, show me one spark in your left hand.”

A single spark flared in Tavik’s left hand, bright as a pinprick of starlight, then vanished.

Oren sagged down to sit on the floor, the tension draining from him as though someone had loosened a rope wound too tightly around his chest. Bran dropped beside him, leaning his shoulder into Oren’s arm. Oren dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling a long, shaking breath. “Thank the gods,” he murmured, the words soft with exhausted relief.

He leaned forward again, speaking to Tavik with the careful calm of someone trying not to frighten a wounded animal. “Tav, let us set a system. One spark for yes and two for no, so we can talk to you. Do you understand?”

A single spark flickered in Tavik’s limp hand, then faded. Oren’s shoulders eased a little more.

“Are you in pain, Tav?”

There was a pause, a breath held by everyone in the room. Then two sparks flared.

Bran leaned in at once, indignant. “Liar. I can tell you’re lying, Tav.”

Oren thumped Bran on the arm. Bran yelped, scooted away, and glared at him. Oren glared right back. “Not helping, Bran.”

“When you are stressed, Oren, you get really nasty, did you know?” Bran muttered, now sitting closer to Tavik’s boots as though they offered some form of shelter.

Oren turned on him at once, irritation flashing. “Have you noticed that your brother is lying here, unconscious and in pain,” he whispered fiercely. “Stop thinking about yourself and focus on what actually matters, Bran.”

Bran shrank back, shifting further away. He fixed his gaze on the scuffed leather of Tavik’s boots, tracing the creases and scratches as though they might anchor him. He said nothing.

Behind him, he heard the soft shuffle of feet as Harthos, Timatticus, and Jorindo quietly withdrew. The door closed with a muted click, leaving the room suddenly still, the air thick with worry and the faint herbal scent lingering from the healer’s bag.

For a moment, Bran wondered if he could slip out with them, leave Oren to his sharp words and Tavik to his sparks. But the thought dissolved almost as soon as it formed. He stayed where he was, sitting small and silent on the floor, staring at the side of Tavik’s boots and trying, with all his might, not to irritate Oren any further.

Bran listened as Oren tried to piece together a conversation from Tavik’s brief, flickering responses. The sparks told a fractured story: Nix was incapacitated, which meant Tavik was too, and both of them were in pain. Oren began pacing, sharp-edged and restless, then returned to ask another question, only to pace again, as if movement alone might force the world into sense.

Bran watched him miserably, then looked back at Tavik. A hollow ache settled in his chest. Sitting here, doing nothing, felt unbearable. He wondered if there was something he could do with his Portalsight, something more than sitting on the floor like a useless lump whilst Oren tried to solve everything at once.

He looked at Tavik’s closed eyes and thought a question he didn’t dare say aloud, whilst Oren was firing off what Bran privately considered a string of pointless questions. Can you guide me to where Nix is so I can open a portal to him, Tav?

The response was immediate.

Sparks erupted into arcing lightning, leaping between Tavik’s hands in a sudden crack of light that made Oren jump back. Bran felt it like a shout, a fierce, wordless yes hurled straight through at him.

Bran scrambled to his feet, heart pounding, and stepped to the head of the sofa. He looked down at Tavik’s still face and asked aloud, voice trembling with urgency, “Can you guide me to where Nix is so I can open a portal to him, Tav?”

The arcing lightning flared again, wilder this time, leaping between Tavik’s hands in bright, jagged bursts. Bran could not help the smile that broke across his face. Oren stared between Tavik and Bran, bewildered, as Bran crouched beside Tavik and focused on him with new determination.

“Can I do this on my own, Tav, but with your help?”

Two sparks flickered. No.

Bran sighed, turned, and looked back at Oren, who had resumed pacing like a caged storm. “Oren, I think we have to work together.”

Oren stopped mid-stride, exhaled sharply, and came to sit beside Bran. He nudged him with his elbow, a small gesture of apology, and glanced sideways at him. “Sorry for snapping at you,” he said quietly, letting his arm rest around Bran’s shoulders for a brief moment before turning his attention back to Tavik.

Bran leaned forward again. “Can you help us together if we meditate with you, Tav?”

Another arc of lightning jumped between Tavik’s limp hands, bright and eager, and both brothers took it as an unmistakable yes.

They shifted into place. Bran sat on the edge of the sofa beside Tavik, gently taking one of Tavik’s limp hands in his own. Oren settled near Tavik’s head, clasping Bran’s free hand and resting his other hand on Tavik’s shoulder. The three of them formed a small, tense circle around their unconscious brother, the air humming faintly with the residue of Tavik’s magic, as though the room itself was holding its breath.

Oren and Bran took several slow breaths, trying to recall what Nix had taught them about joining their minds through meditation. Their breathing gradually fell into the same rhythm, a quiet rise and fall that steadied them both. The room softened around them as they sank into the darkness behind their closed eyes.

Then something stirred.

Behind Bran’s eyelids, a faint blue glow began to gather, as though a thread of light were forming in the direction where Tavik lay. It pulsed gently at first, then brightened, humming with a strange, familiar energy. Bran’s heart lurched. Before he could make sense of it, a voice vibrated through the space around him, echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“Finally. I thought you were both going to spend the whole time bickering with each other.”

It was Tavik. His voice wrapped around Bran like a ripple through water, too close and too far all at once. Bran’s breath caught, fear rising sharp and sudden.

Are you dead, Tav? he called in his inner voice, the words trembling with a pain he had not realised he was carrying.

“Not dead, no… but in between. It’s alright, Bran,” Tavik’s voice murmured, warm and steady in the strange blue dark. “You can help me. I trust you, little brother.”

Oren cracked one eye open and saw Bran sitting utterly still, eyes closed, a single tear sliding down his cheek. Oren’s chest tightened. He wondered what Bran was seeing, what he was hearing, and whether he was truly reaching Tavik at all.

He closed his eyes again, drew in a slow breath, and tried to feel for the presence of either Tavik or Nix in the darkness behind his own eyelids, hoping the connection would open for him, too.

After a while, Oren found he could sense the threads around him, faint at first, then gathering shape. They shimmered like strands of light in a great, unseen loom. He felt the presence of his brothers close by, warm and familiar. Beyond them lay the quiet pulse of the Burrowback village, each inhabitant a soft thread humming in the dark. Further still, the vast green weight of the Eldertree Forest pressed gently against him, its ancient breath stirring the edges of his awareness.

Ahead, distant but unmistakable, was the faint pull of Nix.

And beneath it all, Oren felt something stranger still, as if he were sitting upon a woven fabric made of countless threads, a tapestry stretching in every direction without horizon or end. The longer he sat with it, the more he understood that the fabric was not merely space, but Time itself, binding him to everything and everyone he had ever known, every moment he had lived gathering beneath him like the memory of water.

He drew in a deep breath, and in that breath, he felt Tavik beside him, close enough to touch, though he knew Tavik’s body still lay unconscious on the sofa.

A sudden jolt of fear lanced through him. Please do not be dead, Tav, he said in his inner voice, the words raw.

From somewhere all around him, Tavik murmured, “I’m alright. Just focus on the threads and your instinct. Keep searching. I’m guiding you along the tether.”

Oren steadied himself, pushing the fear aside. He let his awareness drift back to the threads and the fabric beneath him. As he explored the strange landscape of light and sensation, he found he could see his own hand in his mind’s eye, pale and faint as though lit from within.

On impulse, he reached out and touched the fabric beneath him. It felt soft and immense, like the surface of a river that held the memory of every current that had ever passed through it. He gave it a tentative pull in the direction where he sensed Nix.

The fabric shifted, rippling outward.

“Yes, keep going,” Tavik’s voice urged, echoing all around him like a wind moving through leaves.

Oren kept going, taking great handfuls of the fabric and pulling with steady, deliberate strength. Each pull sent a soft tremor through the threads, and with every shift, he felt Nix’s presence drawing nearer, as though the distance between them was folding in on itself.

Then something changed.

A faint movement brushed against Oren’s awareness, and he knew instantly that Tavik had shifted on the sofa. He opened one eye. Tavik’s head had turned slightly, angled towards him, as if trying to look at Oren through closed eyes. A thrill of hope ran through him.

Bran opened his eyes too, watching Oren watch Tavik. “He moved his head,” Oren said quietly, still staring at Tavik. “I felt him move.”

“Whatever you’re doing in the meditation, Oren, keep doing it,” Bran said.

Oren shut his eyes again and reached for the fabric, gathering more of it in his hands. He pulled, and pulled again, until a faint cerulean glow appeared on the horizon behind his eyelids, shimmering like distant starlight. He knew at once that this was Nix.

A soft groan escaped Tavik’s real body. Oren’s eyes flew open. Tavik’s brows were furrowing, his face tightening with effort, though his eyes remained closed. Oren swallowed hard, then shut his eyes once more and focused.

He gripped the fabric of Time with both hands and pulled it towards him. Great folds rippled before him, rolling like waves, and the cerulean light surged closer, brightening with every breath.

Tavik groaned again and lifted a hand to rub his face as a sharp headache settled between his eyes. He blinked them open to find Oren leaning over him, far too close, and Bran clutching his other hand with a look of utter misery.

“You look terrible, Bran,” Tavik croaked.

Bran let out a strangled sound and immediately threw his arms around him. Tavik protested at once, trying to shove him off. “Get off, you great lump, I can’t breathe.”

He peered up at Oren next, who was hovering so intently it was almost comical. “Love you, brother, but give me room, please.”

Oren shifted back into a nearby chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Even as he looked at Tavik, he could still feel the fabric rippling around him in layers, and the unmistakable nearness of their cousin. “You helped me find him, Tav.”

Tavik stayed where he was, head pounding, eyes half closed. He glanced at Oren, then at Bran, who had retreated to the floor beside the sofa. “Amazing you both worked out anything with all that bickering earlier,” he grumbled, his voice thick with reproach.

Oren and Bran exchanged a look.

“You were unconscious, Tav,” Bran said. “How did you also know what was going on?”

Tavik peered down at him, unimpressed. “This is not really what we should be doing right now. Portal magic, little brother.”

Bran sat back on his heels, then pushed himself upright and slumped into a nearby chair. He looked between Oren and Tavik with a defeated expression. “I don’t know how to do portal magic without Nix. I don’t even know how I made the first portal in that strange forest. It just happened.”

Oren exchanged a look with Tavik, then strode over to Bran and hauled him to his feet. Bran protested at once, trying to shove him away, but Oren pulled him closer to where Tavik lay. Tavik reached out, caught Bran’s hand, and held it firmly, his gaze sharpening despite the headache still clouding his eyes.

“You have to try, Bran.”

Bran looked anywhere but at Tavik. The weight of expectation pressed on him, heavy as wet cloth. He felt overwhelmed, exhausted, and painfully unsure of himself. Tavik jiggled his hand, trying to draw Bran’s gaze back, and saw the battle flickering across his younger brother’s face.

“What did you do last time to open that portal to reach us in the Eldertree Forest?” Tavik asked, his voice gentler now, guiding rather than pushing.

Bran pulled his hand free and rubbed his arm, his voice thin with fatigue. “I told you. I just saw thorns floating in the air, then I pulled them apart and came through to you.”

He looked around the room, then back at Tavik. “Nothing in here is floating in the air, Tav. I don’t think I can do this,” he mumbled, sounding utterly despondent. His magic always seemed to happen to him rather than through him, and the helplessness of that gnawed at him.

Oren glanced toward the fading afternoon light. Dust motes drifted lazily through the sunbeam slanting across the kitchen wall, turning in slow, unhurried spirals. An idea struck him. He seized Bran’s arm and marched him into the kitchen.

“Stand here,” Oren said, turning Bran to face the light. “Daydream at the dust motes. Do not move until you create a portal. Think of Nix constantly.”

He left Bran there and returned to Tavik, who was pushing himself into a seated position, grimacing and rubbing his temples.

Bran muttered several unflattering suggestions about what Oren could do with himself, but he stayed where he was, facing the wall, the warm light pouring through the window and gilding the dust that turned slowly in the air before him. He thought of Nix, of how Nix would never let Oren boss him about, and tried to hold that thought steady.

Behind him, he heard Oren telling Tavik to lie back down, and Tavik telling Oren to stop fussing. Their footsteps approached the kitchen, and Bran felt them standing behind him, watching him stare at the fading light. For a moment, he thought they were a very strange family indeed.

Then something shifted.

The dust motes were no longer drifting aimlessly. They were spiralling in intricate, deliberate patterns, weaving shapes in the air that seemed almost purposeful. Two of them twisted together in such a way that they looked almost solid, like tiny knots of light suspended in the gold of the afternoon.

A familiar sensation washed over Bran, the same strange pull he had felt in that other woodland. Suddenly, nothing in the world mattered except reaching out, pinching those two whorls of spinning dust, and pulling them apart.

He did so, almost in a trance.

The awful rending sound tore through the air again, a deep, resonant tearing that made his knees buckle. The room shuddered around him as the fabric between moments split open.

And there, through the widening tear, lay his cousin Nix, unconscious in a darkened room, close enough to touch.