“Is’Bheuvō ‌Kvel,” Keri said, allowing the incantation to vibrate up through his chest. The word of sight - though, according to the old priest from Lendh ka Dakruim, the word of perception might be a more accurate label - woke in the back of his mind. It was a very different feeling than using Savel. Keri had been imprinted with the word, passed down from Bælris, at a young age. For as long as he could remember, it had felt like the pleasant warmth of sunshine on skin, on a beautiful summer day. Bheuv, on the other hand, was a sort of sharpening: a shift of the eyes that left the entire world painted in shades of color just a half step closer to blue. He blinked, at rather than a dark speck against the sky, he could pick out every individual feather of the raptor circling above the Aspen River. “A red-tailed hawk,” Keri said. “Probably looking for fish.” “Correct,” Vivek Sharma declared, from where the old man leaned against the stone crenellations which topped the curtain wall of Castle Whitehill. In Keri’s lap, his son clapped enthusiastically. “Another one Daddy, another one!” Keri had to draw his head back, so that Rei didn’t butt the back of his skull into his chin or his nose in the little boy’s excitement. He kept his right hand wrapped around his son’s body; even though the crenellations had been built high enough not only to prevent anyone from falling accidentally, but also for archers to hide behind, his son was an infamous climber, and Keri wouldn’t have put it past him to scramble up and then tumble over into the streets below. If his left arm wasn’t so useless, he would have held on with both hands. “Well, I can see a squirrel in the branches of a tree down by the river,” Keri said, scanning around the city. He found that he had to move his head very slowly, or the spell became disorienting. Whenever he focused his gaze on something, it seemed to expand to fill his vision. A market stall selling berry tarts, a passing carriage with the arms of a knight painted on the side - a dress in white and blue, in the window of a dressmaker’s shop. Someone had managed to get a brocade from the east with snowflakes worked into a design. It was almost certainly meant to catch Liv’s eye - or the attention of someone who wanted to impress her. “Liv said you can use the word to see when someone is lying, as well?” Keri asked, allowing the spell to fade. He thought that if he kept that particular piece of magic up for too long, he might end up with a splitting headache. Sharma nodded. “Yes. You will need to use the word for truth, tagia, in your incantation.” Keri chuckled. “I’m not Liv, Pandit Sharma,” he protested. “I’ve never been good enough to simply work out an incantation on the fly like that. I have to study and memorize them.” There had been his bit of experimentation in the Tomb of Celris, of course - but that had merely been assembling pieces he already knew in different ways. “Then it will do you good to work out a new spell yourself,” the old priest declared. A gust of wind caught his white beard and pushed it out to one side, almost horizontal, and Rei giggled again in Keri’s lap. “Your beard is funny. And I like the colors on your face.” If nothing else, there was proof that the boy had been attending to his lessons and learning Lucanian, while Keri had been away. He sighed. “Pandit Sharma is a priest of the Trinity, Rei. You need to treat him with respect.” The old man harrumphed. “Children should be allowed to play, to laugh. We all become far too serious when we age - old and tired and grumpy. Sitia teaches us to appreciate people at all stages of life. In any event, Regent, how do you expect to craft yourself a spell combining both words without doing a bit of spellwork?” Keri hesitated. “In Elden lands, most of us don’t make two-word spells from scratch,” he admitted. “We have quite a few recorded. I had been planning to go through the records at Mountain Home to see what might already exist.” Though he was forced to admit to himself, the most common word to combine Savel with was that of House Keria. Taken together, they made up magic that was largely responsible for Al’Fenthia’s crop production. “I am no expert on your houses,” the old priest admitted. “But it was not my understanding that Bheuv was a common word in the north. The Barons of Valegard are well known for using it in battle, and my jati trains to use the same magic in a different way - but I have never heard much rumor of practitioners among the Eld.” “No,” Keri admitted. “If there was ever a Vædic Lord of Perception, I’ve not heard their name, and there is no Elden House made up of their descendents. Perhaps they died early in the war, or fled this world. I’d imagine it’s cropped up from time to time, but I can’t recall anyone offhand.” “I would suggest you consider the possibility that you and Baroness Beatrice are the only people who have learned both - at least, in a long time,” Sharma said. “If you wish to combine them, I suspect you will need to do the work. I am actually somewhat excited to see what ideas you might have.” “I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready for that,” Keri grumbled. And yet, a thought did come to mind. “I wonder whether I could use them together to look down on everything the sunlight touches, as if from above? To see an entire battlefield, spread out beneath me, with nowhere for the enemy to hide...” “Mama!” Rei squealed, and scrambled down out of Keri’s lap. Keri did his best to hide a wince as the boy’s heel dug into his bad leg. It took him a moment to take the wooden wheels, to either side of the chair, in each hand. His left arm was weak, and he had to make two attempts at getting a grip before he succeeded. With a violent yank, he made an attempt at turning the chair by rotating one wheel forward, and the other back. Unfortunately, his left arm was so weak that instead he nearly pushed himself into the crenellations. Vivek Sharma caught the handles on the back of the chair. “Let me help you,” the priest said, quietly, and turned Keri so that he could see Rika and Master Grenfell coming up the wall together. Rei careened directly into his mother’s legs, wrapping his arms around her hips. Her hair hung down like a curtain as she bent to wrap her arms around their son, and for a moment Keri had to look away. By the time he turned back, they were approaching, with Rei holding Rikah’s hand and skipping beside her. “Are you certain you should be up here?” his former kwenim asked. “I worry about Rei falling.” “I had a hand on him,” Keri said. He tried to keep anger out of his voice, but he wasn’t certain that he succeeded. As if he would ever let anything happen to his son. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. “I’m not certain you’d be able to keep hold of him,” Rika continued. “He’s gotten very strong, Keri. And in your condition -” “I’m not dead!” Keri snapped. “And I’m not crippled. I’m getting stronger every day.” Everyone was silent, and they were all looking at him, even Rei, whose eyes were wide. “Of course you aren’t,” Rika said, in a tone that was so obviously placating that Keri thought he might be sick. “Rei, Master Grenfell offered to take you up to the observatory and show you the telescope he keeps up there. It needs a cleaning, apparently.” Grenfell leaned down, gripping his staff tightly in one hand. “And if you help me to clean it,” he offered, “your mother has agreed that you can stay awake until the stars come out tonight, and help me look at them. You can look at the moon, and the ring.” Rei, of course, was already nodding his head, and allowed his small hand to be passed off to Kazimir Grenfell’s larger one. “What are those funny markings on your skin?” the boy asked, as the old mage led him away. “And did Auntie Liv help you clean the tela - the thing for looking, when she was a little girl?” Perhaps it was the word of perception making itself at home, or perhaps merely the fact that Keri had known her his entire life, but he did not miss the tightening of Rika’s jaw, the tension around her eyes, when their son mentioned Liv. Vivek Sharma clapped Keri on the shoulder, though the gesture was gentle. “I’ve been meaning to meet with Osric Fletcher again,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “There are some fascinating differences between Lucanian and Dakruiman funeral rituals, even though we all worship the same gods. I will speak to you both at dinner, I’m certain.” The old man nodded to Rika as he passed her, on his way to the stairs. “That was well-planned,” Keri muttered. “How did you get Grenfell to go along with it?” “I bribed him,” Rika admitted, baldly. “I mentioned to him that there were records of a two-word spell that integrated Ve and Æter that he might find interesting, and that I could have a copy made and brought for him.” “Of course, the lure of knowledge. Irresistible to a mage.” Keri struggled for a moment, but finally managed to haul his chair back around so that he was facing out at the city beyond the curtain wall, rather than at her. “You’ve managed to get me alone, Rika. What do you want?” “Believe it or not, I want to make sure you’re safe,” Rika said, switching from Lucanian to Vakansa. He could hear the scuff of her boots on the stone of the wall as she approached him. “We are still family, after all. You are the father of my son.” “That didn’t seem to make much of a difference before,” Keri growled. “Why should it matter now?” “Because you’re hurt!” Rika grabbed him by the shoulder, and spun his chair around to face her. He wasn't certain, in that moment, whether he was more angry at her, for doing it; the chair, for giving her the opportunity; or himself, for being too weak to stop it. It wasn’t fair either, Keri decided, that she looked just as beautiful as she always had. A thin braid of sun-kissed, honey-blonde hair was tucked behind each of her delicately pointed ears, but the rest hung loose, and was caught and teased by every breeze that came over the wall. Her skin was paler than his - not as pale as Liv’s, or any of the Syvä warriors that Keri had fought beside, but she obviously hadn’t spent nearly as much time outside, on the campaign trail, as he had. “And that’s why you came south?” Keri demanded. “To what - nurse me? Did you truly think I would need or want that?” “I came so that your son could see you,” Rika shot back. “Your father told us what happened, and that he was going to Varuna. I didn’t want you to be alone here, without any of your family, while you’re in this kind of state. Honestly, I was hoping that you would come back with us to Mountain Home, where we can take care of you properly.” “I’m not leaving,” Keri grumbled. “There’s too much to do here. And the castle chirurgeon is helping with my recovery.” “Too much to do, of what?” Rika demanded. “Playing king to that girl’s queen? You’re a warrior, Keri, not a human duke. These things they’re asking you to decide - how many silvers a merchant should pay in taxes, where a mage college should be built, who should serve as ambassador - ambassador! As if this was a real kingdom - these are the sorts of things the elders decide. And you’re not an elder.” “So you’re telling me that I’m too much of an ignorant fool to help my friend,” Keri said. “I can’t recall I had such a show of confidence from you, Rika. And the humor of it does not escape me - that you should spend years begging me to let others do the fighting, while I rest at Mountain Home. And now that I actually need to recover, you find fault in it.” “You really don’t understand?” Rika repeated, taking a step back from him so that she could wave her arm down at the courtyard below, and the keep. “I wanted you to come back to Mountain Home, Keri. To your family. And now, when you need us most, you don’t even do that. You plant yourself here, you risk your own health by working yourself to the bone for that girl. What hold does she have over you? Who is she, that you’d do all of this for her, when not once in twenty years would you come home because I asked it?” “Liv is a friend,” Keri said, sitting forward in his chair. “She asked for my help, and I agreed to give it. And I don’t like how you’re speaking about her. You know that she was the one who took me to be healed? She carried me herself -” “It was the least she could do, since you wouldn’t have been hurt in the first place if not for her war,” Rika spat. “Her war?” Keri could hear the volume of his voice rising, now, loud enough to be heard up and down the wall, in the courtyard below, and perhaps even in the streets which ran to the top of the hill. “Look around, Rika! This entire city, everyone in it, would be a smoking ruin right now if we hadn’t fought to protect it.” He swept his good arm out to encompass Whitehill, sprawling out to the south of the castle. “Her war,” Rika repeated. “A human war, that was none of our affair. And now they’re calling her queen, so she came out of it sitting high, didn’t she? And our own people, they’ve got a name for her, too. ‘The Lady of Winter.’ You’ve heard them say it?” Keri sighed. “I have.” “They think she’s a goddess, now?” Rika leaned down to take Keri by his shoulders, and her hair fell into his lap. “That should tell you everything you need to know. She’s power-hungry. We don’t have kings or queens like the humans do, Keri, we have elders who sit in council. We don’t need a queen, and we don’t need a goddess. Let her do what she wants with her humans, but if she thinks she’s going to rule the Free People, she’s going to learn differently.” Keri reached out with his good hand and grabbed Rika by the forearm. Days slept away in the ring of the Vædim, high above, had cost him much of his strength - but years of training, sparring, and fighting were not lost all at once, and he was still stronger than her. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded, holding her fast, so that she couldn’t get away. “Tell me.” “I mean that House Syvä and House Däivi might be willing to lick the boot of their new favorite daughter, but the rest of us aren’t going to fall over for her,” Rika nearly shouted back. “You’re hurting me, Keri. Let go!” Rather than simply release Rika, Keri used her arm to shove her backward, creating distance between them. “You’re a fool,” he told the woman he’d once loved. “A selfish fool. She’s in Varuna right now, preparing to fight the Lady of Blood, to protect not just you and I, but our son, and all of our people, and you, what? You’d turn the Eld against her? While she stands on the front line, risking her life, you can’t even show a shred of loyalty? I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. After all, it’s the choice you made before.” “Being a soldier doesn’t make you better than the rest of us,” Rika told him. “It doesn’t make you right, and it doesn’t make her right.” “And it’s better to be a coward?” Keri asked. Rika looked away. “Is that what you really think of me, then? So what, if I’d fought beside you, like your new queen, you wouldn’t have left us?” “How many times do I have to say it?” Keri shouted, in frustration. “I was trying to protect you!” Rika raised her hands. “Fine. I can see you won’t come back with us, though I can’t see why you’re so loyal to her. I suppose you’ve been sleeping with her for months now, and that explains it.” Without thinking about it, Keri threw himself forward at her. For just a moment, he thought his left leg might actually hold his weight - and then it collapsed, dumping him onto the hard stones of the curtain wall. “Hit the target, have I?” Rika muttered. Keri managed to get half upright, using his right arm, but for the life of him he didn’t know how he’d get back into the chair. “Let me help you up, at least, before you hurt yourself,” Rika said, and took a step toward him. “Get away from me,” Keri growled. “Just go.” After a moment’s hesitation, the mother of his child turned her back on him and walked away. “If my love wasn’t enough to keep you,” Keri shouted after her, “what makes you think I want your pity?” He leaned back against his chair, but it rolled away, and left him stranded there.