Chapter 41: A Reckoning

(I painted this in Procreate using various oil paint and turpentine brushes - Chaiga T. Cheska)

Nix reacted before thought could catch him. Pure instinct seized him and hurled him upward in one enormous leap. His hands closed around the first branch, then the next, hauling himself higher and higher with a frantic, animal urgency. Bark scraped his palms. Leaves whipped past his face. The world blurred into green and crystal light as he climbed until he reached the highest branches the trees could offer.

He clung there, breath coming in short, sharp bursts, his whole body shaking as if the wind itself had crawled beneath his skin. The branch trembled under his grip. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold back the tumult rising inside him. Betrayal. Fear. Anger. They surged through him like a storm gathering strength, each emotion crashing into the next until he could hardly breathe.

Above him, the sky darkened. Clouds thickened into ink-dark, swollen shapes. Thunder rumbled low and heavy, as if answering the turmoil inside him. The wind rose in sudden, violent gusts, and the high treetop he clung to began to sway, creaking under the force of the storm.

Nix pressed himself against the trunk, trying to steady his breath, trying to quiet the instinct that screamed at him to flee, to vanish, to run until the world fell away beneath him. Below, faint through the roar of wind and the pounding of his own heartbeat, he heard the first calls rising from the forest floor. His cousins and Olis. Their voices reached up through the branches, calling for him to come down.

Nix’s anxiety broke over him in a single crushing wave, and his Caelvarae storm magic renewed its churning of the clouds above him, the sky answering something older than thought in him, massing and pressing lower as though the weather were reading him the way a predator reads a wounded creature. The wind whipped through the high branches, tearing at his storm-red hair, while his ears stayed flattened tight against his head. His runes flickered over his indigo skin in sickly, stuttering green, as if they were struggling to keep pace with the chaos inside him.

His senses sharpened to a painful clarity. He felt the rhythms of every creature in the forest, every heartbeat, every rustle. The little woodland animals froze in their burrows and hollows, their tiny bodies trembling as they listened to the gathering storm. The larger predators halted mid-prowl, their eyes lifting toward the canopy, watching the sky with wary stillness. For a moment, Nix was distracted by the chorus of life around him, the strange creatures of this forest holding their breath beneath his constructed rising tempest.

Fear twisted inside him as he looked up into the boiling sky, knowing his magic was driving every bit of it.

He forced himself to breathe, slow and steady, trying to calm the frantic pulse of his magic. He whispered the word he had used in the past, the one that had silenced his storm magic in the beginning.

“Cease.”

The storm responded at once. The clouds above him unravelled like torn cloth. Thunder faded into silence. Lightning flickered once and died. The wind receded until only a thin, wispy cloud drifted overhead, looking almost bewildered by the sudden stillness.

A sharp crack split the air below him. A branch snapped under the weight of something. Nix’s senses surged back into high alert. He peered through the foliage, heart lurching, every instinct screaming at him to launch himself skyward and unfurl his wings. For a moment he wondered if his magic would hold him long enough to escape this place.

Then he felt, rather than saw, Tavik climbing the tree. Tavik moved with dogged determination, pulling himself upward toward Nix through the swaying branches.

Nix watched Tavik for a moment, observing the careful way his cousin assessed each branch before pulling himself upward, noting the steadiness in Tavik’s movements and the quiet determination that radiated from him. Every shift of Tavik’s weight was deliberate, tested, and Nix could feel that resolve through the magical tether that bound them. Then Nix realised Tavik was sending him an image, a clear visual impression pressed gently through the tether, showing that he was only climbing up to talk and nothing more.

Nix shifted in the topmost branches, adjusting his grip on the bark, and decided he would wait to see what Tavik intended and how high his cousin was willing to climb before stopping. A faint tremor of fear reached him through the tether, and Nix wondered, with a flicker of curiosity, if Tavik was afraid of heights the way Bran was. The thought made him consider climbing down a little to ease Tavik’s discomfort, but his cousin halted about six feet below where Nix sat and made a deliberate show of settling himself against the trunk on a sturdy forked branch. Nix approved of the choice, recognising it as a good perch.

Tavik looked up at him, and their eyes met briefly. Nix held the stare for a heartbeat, then decided he wanted to see whether Tavik would flinch. He lengthened his fangs and narrowed his eyes to slits, letting the predatory gleam settle over his features as he returned Tavik’s gaze. He felt a small, sharp satisfaction when Tavik’s gaze dropped away, and Nix wondered if this would be the moment his cousin chose to climb back down.

Tavik remained where he was, steady on his chosen branch, and Nix watched him take a slow moment to survey the forest around them. Through the tether, Nix felt Tavik’s quiet appreciation of the view, a calm, grounded presence that contrasted sharply with the storm Nix had only just quelled. They stayed silent as the canopy breathed around them, and Nix kept his fangs lengthened and his eyes in their slitted form while he scanned the forest in turn. He drew in the cooler air that drifted through the upper branches, letting it settle in his lungs, and every so often he glanced down at Tavik to see what his cousin might do next.

He was baffled when Tavik mostly ignored him and continued to look around at different things, studying the treeline, the distant valley, the shifting colours of the crystals, as if none of the previous chaos had happened at all. The casualness of it unsettled Nix more than any confrontation would have. After a few moments, he realised his fangs had eased back into their normal shape, and his eyes had lost their predatory slits. He tried to summon them again, but they refused to return. Something had gone out of the fear without his having decided to let it, softening the edges of his anxiety, and he did not understand why.

Nix frowned and looked down at his cousin, trying to work out what was happening and why Tavik’s presence was affecting him this way.

Tavik eventually stopped surveying the treetops, let his free hand rake casually through his hair, glanced up at Nix, and said, “So what do you make of Olis, the scribe, then?”

The offhand question threw Nix completely. He peered down at his cousin, raised an eyebrow, opened his mouth, then closed it again as confusion rippled through him. He shifted his attention to the noises at the base of the tree, listening to the faint movements below, and to the presence of the scribe he could sense looking up at him from far beneath the canopy. Tavik, however, seemed to be waiting for an answer, watching him with a kind of patient expectation that made Nix’s pulse stumble.

“H… he seems… nice,” Nix stammered at last, the words tumbling out awkwardly. He was even more perplexed when Tavik chuckled in response and settled himself more firmly on the branch, as if that simple answer had been exactly what he wanted.

Nix watched his cousin shift on the branch and look up at him in response. “He does seem nice, doesn’t he? But he also seems to be keeping things from us, or he knows something and isn’t ready to share, like the Talanooks and the Burrowbacks… all somehow knew something we didn’t. Have you noticed?”

Tavik adjusted himself against the trunk, settling into the forked branch with an ease that made the whole situation feel strangely ordinary. Nix returned his gaze, baffled by the surreal normality of this conversation happening casually at the top of a tree, as if his storm, his panic, and his flight into the canopy had been nothing more than a passing inconvenience.

He paused before replying, letting the forest breathe around them. “Ætherina, too, of the Æthelweave, knew something, and then the Temporal Mist happened.” The words came more easily than he expected. A calmness had begun to seep into him, subtle but steady, and he realised this quiet exchange with his cousin, about things that were not sharp or frightening or urgent, was easing the tension that had driven him upward.

He watched Tavik rub absently at a patch of bark laced with violet crystals, the gesture slow and thoughtful. Tavik’s voice drifted up to him again. “I wonder what we do with this? How do we move through life, meeting others along the way who all seem to know more about who we are and where we’re going than we do!”

Nix studied him, trying to understand the strange comfort of Tavik’s presence and the way it softened the edges of his fear.

Nix considered this and responded, “Perhaps it’s something we just go through because we’re still working out who we are… part of growing up, perhaps.” He said it slowly, thinking as he spoke, and only then realised he had climbed down to be level with Tavik. The awareness struck him like a sudden jolt. His eyes widened as he looked directly at his cousin, who was already smiling at him.

Tavik’s eyes twinkled with quiet amusement as he watched Nix piece together what he had been doing. Nix glanced up the way he had come, the high branches swaying gently above them, and for a moment he considered returning to the top of the tree. He turned back to Tavik and said, “You tricked me!”

Tavik smiled and let out a theatrical sigh. “I’ve had practice; I do have a younger brother, you know.” He reached out and laid a hand on Nix’s shoulder, the gesture warm and steady, and gave him an earnest look. “Are you alright?”

Nix held still under the touch, trying to understand how he had gone from storm magic panic to sitting calmly beside his cousin in the branches of a foreign forest.

Tavik cleared his throat, nudged Nix lightly, and gestured with his chin toward the ground. “Are you ready to come down then?”

Nix peered below, then back at Tavik, feeling the quiet camaraderie through the tether, a steady warmth. He took a slow, steadying breath before replying. “Yes, I suppose so.” The reluctance clung to him, and Tavik felt it immediately and squeezed Nix’s shoulder, his voice gentle. “That betrayal you’re carrying, I can feel it. I understand, and I bet Oren and Bran do too, but you know we will never betray you, cousin.”

Nix felt his eyes sting with sudden tears. He blinked them away and managed a brief smile, though he found he only wanted silence. Tavik understood without needing words, and together they began to climb down, moving mostly level with each other. The lower they descended, the more reluctant Nix became, his grip tightening on each branch as the forest floor drew nearer.

At last they dropped to the ground beside the tree. Almost immediately, Nix staggered into Tavik as Bran launched himself at him, flinging his arms around his cousin with frantic, earnest force. “I’m sorry, Nix!” Bran gasped, squeezing him tightly. Nix patted Bran awkwardly on top of the head as Bran continued, breathless and distressed. “I was just in a trance, and I was saying what I saw, and I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Nix, honestly, and I’m so, so sorry!”

Tavik pushed Bran off Nix. “Bran, give him space! Honestly, you’re so dramatic!” Bran staggered into Oren, who caught him and steadied him as Bran continued to watch Nix anxiously.

Nix straightened, drawing in a slow breath, and looked briefly at his cousins before turning his gaze to Olis, who stood a little apart, observing in silence. “I’m sorry for reacting like that. I just had to get away.” His voice was quiet, but steady enough. He looked at Bran then, noticing that his cousin’s eyes had cleared and were no longer clouded over. Bran looked worried, almost anguished, his hands wringing together as he watched Nix intently, waiting for his answer with a kind of fragile hope.

“You have no need to apologise, Nix,” said Oren, smiling warmly at him. “Any of us would have reacted the same way in your place.”

The reassurance settled around Nix like a soft weight, and he held Oren’s gaze for a moment, trying to absorb the steadiness offered to him.

Nix felt a surge of belonging so strong it nearly knocked the breath out of him, and for a moment he almost staggered again. For the first time in his life, he felt he had loved ones who would look out for him. He had known this before, back when his cousins first agreed to begin the quest with him from Drakkensund, but now the truth of it settled deeper, as if something inside him had finally caught up. These were his true family, the family he had longed for all his life.

The revelation left him glowing, as though every colour in his veins had brightened at once. When he looked around at his cousins, he saw in their faces that they felt it too. He felt them reaching out to him, hands settling on his shoulders, sealing the feeling of connection between them, of found family and protection.

Then, as one, they turned to face the scribe, who had been watching them with a smile that reached his eyes.

Nix spoke, sensing he was speaking for his cousins as well, who stood close beside him. “Why do you seem to know something we do not?” He felt Bran shift and glanced down briefly, seeing his cousin watching Olis with intent focus, waiting for the scribe’s response. Nix continued, “We need to trust you and would value you more if you were less secretive with us while we are together in this forest.”

The words hung in the air between them, steady and clear, and Nix felt Tavik and Oren peering down at him, perhaps wondering at his unusual boldness. He wondered at himself too, surprised by the steadiness in his own voice, but he suspected it was his cousins’ presence that made him feel stronger. The thought made his eyes sting again, a brief shimmer of emotion he tried to blink away.

Olis shifted his robes and smiled at the four boys. “You’re right to feel the way you do, as it is unfair that I know a great deal more than you at this time, especially about your origins and your path here and now.”

Oren, Tavik, Bran and Nix looked around at one another, each needing to confirm that the others had heard the same thing, that Olis had finally acknowledged what they had all sensed. Their shared glance carried hope, relief, and a flicker of anticipation. Then they all turned back to Olis, expectant and attentive.

But as Olis opened his mouth to continue, both his head and Nix’s whipped around at the same moment, snapping toward the direction they had come. Oren, Tavik and Bran felt their hearts thud hard in their chests as they saw the telltale reactions ripple through Nix, the unmistakable signs that something dangerous was being detected. The fact that Olis reacted too made it even more startling.

Nix’s ears were flattened tight against his head. His fangs had lengthened into sharp, gleaming points. The runic patterns on his skin flared in alarm, bright and urgent, pulsing with the instinctive warning of a Lightweaver sensing threat.

Author’s Note:

I hope you enjoyed this rather short chapter (sorry about that). Believe me, the next few chapters are going to be so long that it’ll hopefully make up for it. I feel like this chapter was a bit of an interlude, exploring the tether between Nix and Tavik, which will definitely help the unfolding story going forward.

-Chaiga T. Cheska