Chapter 44: A Painful Secret

(I painted this in Procreate on my iPad from a sketch. I used the oil paint brushes. - Chaiga T. Cheska)

Tavik spoke to Nix through the tether that bound them as the magical light Olis had cast faded from the clearing, leaving the campsite once more in darkness. “What is Olis doing, and that elf with him? Can you see anything, or hear them at all?”

Nix’s ears twitched, a small, restless movement. He flicked a brief glance towards Tavik but offered no reply, his attention fixed solely upon the scribe and the elf. Tavik waited a heartbeat, then hissed aloud, low and sharp, “Nix!”

Oren and Bran turned at the sound, both of them having been peering into the dim clearing, trying to discern what the scribe and the elf were about. Oren watched his cousin closely, noting the tension in Nix’s ears. They were not pressed flat to his head, but near enough to betray unease. He reached out and set a steadying hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. “Tav, leave Nix be. He’ll tell us when he’s ready.”

Tavik ignored Oren and kept his eyes on Nix, because something reaching him through the tether had made the hair rise at the back of his neck, and he had no wish to wait and learn why. A faint dread was gathering in his cousin, and Tavik could make no sense of it beyond a growing certainty that the elf was its cause. He felt the same tightening he always did when Nix’s guard went up, a slow gathering strain, and beneath it, something sharper: the unmistakable edge of wariness Nix was directing at the treeline.

Tavik squinted into the dark valley, trying to make out whatever shapes his cousin was tracking, but the landscape gave him nothing beyond shifting shadow. Since Nix kept his observations locked behind silence, Tavik turned instead to the tether itself, reading what he could from the sensations alone rather than stare uselessly into the gloom. What reached him was a slow, insistent pressure and, threaded through it, a flicker of recognition that pulled Nix forward as though drawn by something he could not resist. The strangeness of it settled cold in Tavik’s chest, and he shifted where he stood, unable to shake the sense that whatever Nix had found in that treeline, it mattered more than either of them yet understood.

Oren and Bran exchanged quiet, uneasy looks as they watched the two, wondering what Nix was detecting out in the darkened valley that none of them could see.

Nix stood alert, every sense sharpened, his attention fixed on Olis and the elf who stood at the opposite treeline, speaking in low voices well out of earshot. The clearing had fallen into complete darkness, and even the moon high above seemed to have slipped behind a bank of cloud, leaving the world muted and indistinct. Yet Nix could still make out Olis, absurdly short beside the tall elf, the two of them talking quietly and glancing now and again towards the campsite. Nix felt a distinct and unnerving certainty that both the elf and the scribe could see him and his cousins with perfect clarity.

Nix couldn’t make out a single word they were saying, but he could feel the tension radiating from the elf, a taut, simmering anger directed at him and his cousins for reasons he could not fathom. Her gestures as she spoke with the scribe were sharp and abrupt, cutting through the darkness like quick strokes of a blade, and Nix could see Olis attempting to reason with her, his movements gentler, more measured. Frustration prickled at Nix. He wanted Olis to return and explain what was happening, because something about this elf felt deeply strange, and the persistent, needling sensation urged him to look more closely with every sense he possessed.

He had been so aware of his own magic and of the elf’s watchful presence that he had been suppressing his natural tendencies, instinctively holding himself back. He felt, without knowing how, that the way he existed in the world might unsettle her, especially with the animosity he sensed from her, a fierce conviction that he was an intruder in her territory. Moving carefully, so as not to provoke her, Nix allowed himself to relax. His eyes narrowed to slits, his fangs descended in a slow, deliberate glide, and the runes along his skin began to shift and thrum with quiet life. His nature pulled him into the world of seeing, hearing, tasting, and understanding with sharp, primal clarity, the way he was meant to perceive the world once he let his guard fall away.

At first, Nix perceived only the elf herself. She was very tall, taller than Olis and certainly taller than Oren, which Nix assumed must be typical of pure-blood elves. It would explain Oren’s height, even though he carried only half their lineage.

This particular elf was dressed like a warrior, clad in protective, sturdy clothing from which Nix saw the faint shimmer of magic rising like heat from stone. He wondered at the absence of weapons and suspected that her magic and her hands served as her arsenal. As he studied the elf, her life threads began to reveal themselves, and they struck him with such familiarity that he tilted his head, feeling his eyes shift as he drew upon his own instinctive magic to understand her more clearly.

He discerned the two hearts beating within her chest, each with its own rhythm, and understood at once that she carried no fear of his cousins, and certainly none of him. She was a fierce elf warrior, and he sensed she was the youngest of her family, sent to watch the intruders. The thought made Nix wonder where the rest of her kin were at that moment, and how close they might be. He understood, with a quiet certainty, that this elf was dangerous if crossed, and that her kind were nearby, waiting for her to return.

Nix lowered his ears a little further and felt himself shift, growing slightly larger. He did not correct the instinct. Instead, he focused on the elf and her life threads, which seemed the most curious part of her and the thing that drew his attention most strongly. There was something about those threads, something strangely familiar, though he could not yet grasp why.

Then, suddenly, Nix understood in a crashing flood of awareness who this elf was, and the realisation struck him so violently that he gasped and stumbled backwards. Instinct took over. He reached out with both hands, trying to touch the strands of her life threads, feeling his pulse thunder through his veins. He knew these threads intimately, knew them in a way that made his breath catch and his eyes widen in shock and recognition.

He was dimly aware of Oren and Bran closing in beside him, alarmed by his behaviour and reaching out as though to steady him, but Nix could only stare at the elf. She was watching him now, her expression clouded with confusion, as if she too sensed something but had no understanding of its significance. Then Olis turned sharply, fixing Nix with a fierce, warning look, and Nix felt true fear coil through him. One glance into the scribe’s eyes told him that what he had just learned must remain hidden, or everything around them would fracture.

He clamped down on his thoughts at once, forcing the realisation deep within himself. But as he heard Tavik gasp behind him, Nix realised he had forgotten the tether. He spun around and saw Tavik stumbling backwards, wide-eyed and staring at him in shock.

Nix didn’t think. He reacted instinctively, launching himself at his cousin. His wings unfurled with a resounding crack that sent a sharp tug of pain through the wound in his chest, but he ignored it. In a single surge of motion, he seized Tavik and hurled them both into the night sky as his wings caught the wind. Pain lanced through him, bright and merciless, as his magic pulled at his life force and tore at the deep wound in his chest, but he forced the sensation aside and clamped his arms around Tavik, holding him fast.

His great wings, scattered with constellations, flickered and stuttered with fractured light as they swept over the crystal clusters and treetops below. Nix wheeled unsteadily through the night air, fighting the drag of pain and the weight of his cousin, driving them towards the high treetops beyond the camp, away from the elf and away from Olis.

Tavik, realising he was airborne and still reeling from the revelation Nix had just uncovered, clung to him as they crashed into a tall tree high above the Crystalsong Forest. The ground was a dizzying drop below, swallowed in darkness, and the campfire glowed faintly in the valley like a distant ember. Nix folded his wings, feeling the sharp ache as they slid beneath his shoulder blades and vanished, then turned his full attention to his cousin. He pinned Tavik against the top of the tree and growled, low and fierce. “If you share who she is with your brothers, you put your lives at risk. Do you want that?”

Tavik had one arm wrapped around the flimsy branch they had landed on and the other gripping Nix’s wrist. His breath came in sharp, uneven gasps, his eyes still wide and panicked, and he was astonished to realise he was trembling from head to toe. He looked at his cousin and felt, for the first time, a flicker of fear at what Nix truly was. He knew Nix would sense it through the tether, and found that just then, he did not care. The pain radiating through the tether from Nix forced Tavik to take several steadying breaths, trying to ease the answering ache in his own chest.

Nix nudged him, demanding an answer, and Tavik looked back at him, at the fierce intensity carved across his cousin’s face. He shook his head, trying to calm his breathing and avoid looking at the ground far below. Tavik was not usually afraid of heights, but he did not trust this tree to hold them, and the thought of falling unnerved him more than the height itself.

“Sh….she is my mother,” Tavik whispered, hearing his own voice crack and feeling his eyes sting. At his words, something softened in Nix. The fierceness in his expression eased, shifting into something gentler as he watched his cousin with compassion, though a warning still lingered in the set of his features.

“She doesn’t know you are her son,” Nix replied as he crouched on the branch beside his distraught cousin, still holding him firmly in place. “She has yet to meet your father. We cannot influence her in any way, or you and your brothers may never be born.”

Tavik slowly sat up on the branch, still shaking, and looked at his cousin with a miserable whisper. “I can’t tell my brothers, can I?”

“No.”

Tavik groaned and dropped his head, feeling as though something inside him were being torn apart. When he looked back at Nix, tears slid down his face. He wiped them away hurriedly, drew a deep breath, then glanced from Nix to the distant glow of their camp below.

“Are we climbing down or flying down?” Tavik said despondently, his voice thin with exhaustion.

Nix answered by unfurling his wings, gripping Tavik against him, and launching them into the darkened sky. The moment they lifted from the branch, both of them gasped as a fresh wave of pain surged from Nix’s wound and reverberated through the tether, breaking harder over Tavik than it ever did over Nix himself. Their descent towards the camp was unsteady and plunging, the night air rushing past as they clung to each other, trying to breathe through the pain that pulsed between them.

Oren and Bran were standing beside the campfire, both of them tense with worry, when Nix and Tavik landed suddenly with a heavy thud beside Oren. He reached out at once and caught Nix as his cousin staggered, pain carved starkly across Nix’s face. Nix’s wings folded and vanished the moment his feet touched the ground. He gasped and clutched his chest, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to contain the burst of white coils of pain spiralling out from the wound. Oren held him upright, bending over him and murmuring quiet reassurances while Nix’s fangs receded, his eyes returned to normal, and the runes flickered faintly across his skin. Oren guided him down to sit beside the fire, steadying him with gentle, familiar hands.

Tavik stumbled into Bran, and the two of them nearly toppled over. Tavik groaned and pressed a hand to his own chest, taking several deep breaths as he tried to manage the pain radiating through the tether from Nix. Bran looked up at his brother’s face and frowned, worry tightening his features. “Tav, what happened?”

Tavik steadied himself, forcing an exaggerated calm across his features as he patted his younger brother’s shoulder, offering a thin, wavering smile. “Nothing. No need to worry.”

He arranged himself by the fire with deliberate casualness, settling down and prodding at the embers as though the world were perfectly ordinary. Bran watched him with a deepening frown, unconvinced, then moved to where Oren had guided Nix to sit. Their cousin’s face was twisted with pain he was trying to mask, the strain visible in every line of him. Oren glanced from Tavik to Nix, then to Bran, unease tightening his expression.

“Check his wound, Bran, and don’t let him pretend he’s fine. Using his wings twice will have drained him.”

Bran nodded, retrieved his pack, and rummaged through it for his healing supplies before settling beside Nix, intent on helping however he could. Oren watched them for a moment, then lowered himself beside Tavik, nudging his shoulder lightly as he observed his younger brother coax the fire back to life.

“What’s going on, Tav?”

Tavik looked up at Oren and forced his expression into something calm and untroubled. “Nothing’s going on. Why?” He glanced towards Olis, who was ushering the tall elf towards their campsite, both of them just beginning to emerge into the reach of the firelight. Tavik fixed his attention on rekindling the flames, aware of Oren studying his face and hoping, with a tight knot of desperation, that just this once his brother would not read anything in his expression.

“Tav, seriously,” Oren hissed, leaning closer, his voice low and sharp. “Something is going on if our cousin attacks you, flies off with you into the darkness, and then you come back looking miserable. I know you, Tav.”

Tavik tried not to think about Olis, whose soft voice he could hear as the scribe encouraged the elf to approach. He could feel her trepidation, a faint tremor of uncertainty. She was barely older than Oren, and Tavik had so many questions he could not allow himself to ask. He drew a steadying breath and looked up at his older brother.

“Just… we… Nix and I… we just had a… a… disagreement through the tether, so… um… so we had to discuss it. That’s all.” Tavik rarely stammered, and the sound of it made him wish he could gather himself, but his voice refused to steady. He glanced across at Nix, who was enduring Bran’s examination with tight-lipped patience. For a heartbeat, Nix flicked an intense look up at Tavik, sharp and warning, and Tavik looked away at once. He felt Oren’s hand settle on his shoulder and decided it was safer to focus on the stick he was prodding into the fire, anything to keep his expression under control, as Olis’s voice rose gently over the campsite.

“Boys, may I introduce you to my friend, Liv of the Crystalsong Elves,” Olis said, sweeping a hand to his side as the very tall elf stepped out of the shadows. She stood with a cool, disdainful air, her gaze passing over each of them in turn, studying their faces until it settled on Nix. She frowned, sharp and assessing.

“What are you, boy? Your sudden flight and now this pain you radiate. What are your intentions in my forest?”

Her words were clipped and sharp, the kind of tone that belonged to someone accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed without hesitation. Nix watched her but said nothing, sitting hunched in on himself, the pain still thrumming through his body like a burning torch that seemed to drain his strength with every pulse. Bran sat beside him, staring at the elf in open wonder. She was so tall, so fierce, and yet she looked at Nix as though he had caused her trouble, as though his very presence had disturbed something she relied upon.

It was Oren who rose slowly to his feet, faced the elf, and gestured towards Nix. “Nix is our cousin. He is half Tiorian Lightweaver and half Caelvarae. His wings come from his Lightweaver heritage, as does his pain.”

Liv focused on Oren, the tallest of the boys, scrutinising him with a cool, assessing gaze. She thought him small for an elf, though perhaps that was all one could expect of a half-elf. Her head tilted slightly as she studied the boy’s life threads, and her expression shifted when she found something familiar in them, just as she had earlier. She decided it was likely because they were half Crystalsong elves, which mattered far less than pure elf blood.

“Who are your makers?” she said sharply, directing the question at Oren. “Don’t they know there is a ban across the kingdom!” Her attention darted down to the boy sitting by the fire, the one poking at the embers. He made a strangled sound and began jabbing at the fire more fiercely, his head ducked low.

“What is wrong with this boy?” Liv asked, her gesture towards Tavik sharp enough to cut the air. Bran looked between Liv and Tavik, worry tightening his face, while Oren stayed standing, glancing down at his brother with a brief, troubled frown before lifting his gaze back to the insistent elf.

“I don’t know. He hasn’t said.”

Olis stepped forward, hands raised in a calming arc, as though trying to smooth the tension that vibrated through the campsite like a struck chord. The air felt tight, humming with unease.

“Please, Liv,” Olis said, his voice gentle but carrying a thread of urgency, “consider sitting with us and learning the nature of these boys. You know I move through time; well, these boys have travelled with me on this journey. We have come four hundred years from a future beyond your time.”

Liv studied Olis for a long moment and slowly nodded, recalling this scribe and his strange habit of stepping in and out of time. Then she looked around at the boys, all of them watching her with varying degrees of tension, before stepping towards the fire and lowering herself cross-legged beside Tavik. He looked startled that she had chosen him, his shoulders tightening as though bracing for something. Oren eased himself down on Tavik’s other side, watching the elf with open curiosity.

Liv towered over them all, even seated, making Tavik look small beside her. She studied him for a moment, her gaze moving across his face, then drifting to Nix across the fire before returning to Tavik. She placed a tentative hand on his shoulder and immediately winced, pulling her hand back as though stung. “You are carrying pain that is not your own, and yet you grieve. What ails you, boy?”

Tavik shifted under her touch, swallowing several times, feeling his eyes sting as he fought to keep his expression steady. He could feel his brothers watching him, and Nix most of all, the tether humming with attention. When he spoke, his voice shook. “My cousin, Nix, and I are bound by a tether, so I feel his pain. That is all.”

Oren looked at Tavik, knowing full well his younger brother wasn’t sharing everything, and frowned at him. Tavik ignored the look, staring fixedly at the fire. For a moment the campsite fell into a taut silence, broken only by the crackle of the flames and the soft rustle of nocturnal creatures moving through the undergrowth. Liv studied Tavik, then shifted her attention to Oren, scrutinising him with the same sharp, assessing gaze before turning to look towards the two boys across the fire.

“I can see you all need to learn to ground your magic in something other than your life force. I will teach this, if it has not already been shared by Olis.”

Olis smiled, relief flickering across his face as he looked around at the boys and then at Liv. Her anger had settled for now, though he could tell she still suspected something, and he wondered how he could possibly keep her from discovering the truth of who these boys were. The tension in the camp shifted, loosening, and a collective sigh of relief seemed to move through Bran, Oren, and even Nix.

Olis gave a knowing smile, sank down beside Liv, reached out, and placed a hand on Nix’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

Nix looked up at Olis and nodded slowly, still wincing as he shifted and kept his gaze fixed on the elf. A tangle of emotions churned through him, and he kept glancing at Tavik, who now sat looking diminished beside the towering elf. Tavik’s anguish reverberating through the tether struck him again and again, sharp and steady, so he sent a pulse of reassurance and apology towards his cousin. Tavik pushed it away at once, his hurt unwavering. Nix whispered through the tether, trying to steady him. “Just enjoy this moment, but keep it secret from your brothers. They mustn’t know.”

Tavik’s response came immediately, raw and stinging. “If you were sitting beside your father before he knew he would be your father, how would you feel?“

The words hit Nix hard. His eyes stung, and he looked down at his feet, feeling a heavy ache settle in his chest. He felt terrible for Tavik, yet Olis’s fierce warning still echoed through him, unyielding. If Liv learned she was sitting around a campfire with her future children, she might never bring them into existence. The truth had to be kept from Oren and Bran, especially Bran.

Nix sighed and lifted his head, only to find Oren studying him with that sharp, perceptive look that always made Nix uneasy. He hoped desperately that his cousin wouldn’t piece together what was happening, not until they were far from this elf and her forest. He hoped, hoped, that Tavik would somehow forgive him for obeying the scribe’s orders, even as doubt gnawed at him, whispering that perhaps his compliance was not the right thing to do at all.