The walk to Numa Mountain had become a somber affair. The Prince was aching more than usual, and the people who surrounded him were despairing.
Yethyr knew something had to be done. He could hardly defeat the Datreans under this cloud of hopelessness. He had to do something. He was the only one who could, and that frightened him.
It was hilarious. He wasn’t frightened of their supposedly hopeless task, but convincing everyone else that it wasn’t hopeless seemed the greater labor to him. If Maethe’s mandate did not stir them, how could he?
Who would be inspired by the King’s damned and dying son? He thought helplessly.
They ate around the campfire that night in dim spirits. Yethyr watched Mandorias and Wes mutter to each other beneath Nisari’s distrustful gaze. He watched Ruzar serve stew to Jaetheiri and Kettir.
Yethyr’s eyes passed over Kettir without suspicion, but I took the opportunity to try and glean a clue about the mysterious ‘Ayathir.’
I saw nothing of interest.
His curly black hair was a little shorter, and his skin was a little paler, but by my reckoning, he looked like a normal Brinn, all blue eyes and lanky limbs.
He took care to exude a wide-eyed shyness, but it had to be false. I remembered his fingers’ brief touch on my hilt; I remembered the intensity of his recoil.
There had been nothing timid about Ayathir when his name rang through me.
Now, though, he was painfully nondescript, and Yethyr did not think about him. Instead, the Prince was trying to think about how to convince the party that they were traveling to victory and not death.
It was a struggle. There was a new ache in his knees and his fingers that had not been there before last night, and they disturbed his every attempt to calculate. Usually, he would just stubbornly persist until he made headway, but now he knew he didn’t have to.
Yethyr fingered my hilt at his side and hesitated. He glanced at Jaetheiri, made sure she wasn’t paying attention, and then surreptitiously let me take over.
I was startled. I hadn't been expecting it, and it took me a few flummoxed moments to realize what he wanted from me.
I silenced his pain again. As this was just the kind of reckless behavior I wanted to encourage, I was happy to reward him.
For now, he could push me out if I tried anything, and he knew that. It was what gave him the security to try this at all. I had every incentive to reinforce that confidence, so I played nice, stayed passive, and just gave him the bliss he craved.
But it wasn’t relaxation he sought.
He took a deep breath, cleared his mind, and began to think.
I was amazed. He usually thought fast, but now, his mind flowed from one idea so quickly and so easily that I could not follow him.
Oh.
Only then did it really sink in to me that Yethyr made his every judgement through a haze of pain. Without me, all calculations were blurred by gnawing distraction. All interactions were poisoned by an undercurrent of nagging irritation. At all times. In that way, he had never actually been of sound mind since I’d known him.
He still wasn’t, not even in this short-lived peace, but he was sharper, a lot sharper. I tried to ride the waves of his calculations and caught snippets here and there, but when Yethyr settled on a decision, all I gathered was that the way forward was to tell the truth.
Whatever that meant.
“Listen.” He got everyone’s attention. “We are all grieved by our losses. We have suffered betrayal after betrayal. It is as if Hell itself is set against us, and considering our task, that very well may be so.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Everyone was staring at him. He set his shoulders. “But Hell doesn’t understand, and neither, it would seem, do you all. Our losses don’t matter.”
Nisari gasped. “You dare imply that their sacrifices—”
“Got us here,” Yethyr said firmly. “They are a loss to us all who serve Heaven, but they are not needed for this hunt.” He frowned when he saw surprise rippling over everyone’s faces. “Did you really think I ever had any intention of beating the Datreans with numbers? 18 hunters. 3 hunters. Against 36 of the greatest arcanists the world has ever seen, what's the difference?”
He waited for comprehension to settle over them all. “It’s better this way. Our faith and our loyalty have been tested, and now, only those that we can really trust remain.”
He said this as Kettir sat quietly beside him, hiding his true name, and I almost laughed.
“We are the few; the chosen few. Any traditional hunting party could not do what we are about to attempt.”
“You intend to be subtler,” Kettir said thoughtfully.
“What is the plan then?” Nisari demanded. “Carve a circle of deathsong around whatever hole they're hiding in?”
“No.” Yethyr shook his head. “Their necromancers would hear my work before I could ever complete it. If I had an army preventing them from sabotaging it, as I did during the Siege of Datrea, it could be done, but my father has denied me that path. I must use a more secret weapon.”
“What secret weapon?”
Yethyr blinked at her. “You.”
“Me?” Nisari squeaked.
“And Wesed, if he can deliver, but I know you can deliver.” Yethyr leaned forward excitedly. Usually, the movement would have aggravated his bones, but I was still silencing his pain, freeing him to express his glee unmolested. “My work is loud. Deathsinger Zasha would hear me coming a mile away, but you?” He smiled with all his teeth. “The Datreans have no windsong tradition. They can’t even hear it. You could do your work right beneath their noses, and they wouldn’t know what hit them.
“What do you expect me to do if I get close?” she asked irritably. “Blow them off the mountain?”
“Against a Datrean, your power is far greater. Remember, their methods are different from ours. They sing their songs themselves. They use their own voices; they use their own lungs. They require air for all their songcraft and you—you, Nisari, the Blustering Gale—can take that air from them.”
Nisari’s jaw dropped.
“I spoke to the First Archivist of Datrea in Hell,” Yethyr went on in a rush. “He credited his career advancement to a technique that stopped his rivals from singing at all, and I wondered: couldn’t we do that? Couldn’t an aeromancer do that and at a much grander scale?”
“I don’t know,” Nisari whispered, overwhelmed. “I’ve never done such a thing, and I’ve lost all my tools…”
“Your old tools could not have helped you anyway,” Yethyr said. “None of them had been designed to do this. Removing all the air from a place has never been attempted. It would have to be new notation, a composition entirely your own.”
“A composition to awe the angel herself,” she breathed excitedly. Yethyr’s enthusiasm was becoming infectious. “Yes, yes. If they really are hiding out in some hole, some confined space, I think I could…yes. I could do it; I can do it. I just need time.”
“You have that time. Our true hunt is only now just beginning.”
For the first time, he was believed. Nisari sat straighter; they all did. There was a plan that wasn’t just throwing themselves at the enemy, a plan they could get behind, and in that moment, a prince they could get behind. Yethyr’s eyes were clear and calm, the nakedness of his conviction as plain as day. When he wasn’t gritting his teeth from constant pain, there was a smile peeking at the corner of his lips that lit up his whole face. For a moment, he was as animated as the King of Brinn or Yugrir.
Jaetheiri was looking at him with misty eyes.
“What?” he snapped at her.
She cracked a smile. “Nothing.”
“How does Wesed fit into this?” Mandorias asked.
Everyone looked at Wes, who had been looking back and forth from Nisari and Yethyr with alarm. He had been the only one who had not understood Yethyr’s speech, and I found it comical that he was so out of the loop.
“Wesed also has the advantage of discretion. All his brethren died in the siege and in the making of Bonesong. The Council hiding up in that mountain have no sideromancers left. If he can learn the Brinn technique of notation and apply it to steelsong, he would be able to do things never before seen. They would not be able to confront it. Just like windsong, they can’t hear it.”
Nisari frowned. “But what would he do?”
Yethyr shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t dare set expectations when even he doesn’t know his capabilities. I’m going to give him a much smaller project first, and we will see. He switched to Datrean. “Steelsinger?”
Wes fidgeted. Nisari was suddenly in good spirits, and it was clear he did not assume that was a good thing. “...my prince.”
“You’ve played with your fishbones enough. I have a project for you.”
Wes tilted his head. “For what purpose?”
Yethyr looked up at the Numa Mountains looming above them. “We have a mountain to climb.”
Thank you so much for reading! What did you think? I love comments and often respond to them. If you want to support me and read ahead, you know where to go.
ANNOUNCEMENT - During the holidays, I will be slowing my chapter releases in a vain attempt to get my workaholic brain to take a rest. Thank you so much for all my loyal readers!
**Holiday schedule** is 6 am PDT on Fridays. See you guys then!
Who do you think is going to be most effective against the Datreans?
