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By Root 1028 0

again. Why did people have to die? Why did their own worlds have to end? He fought back an urge to cry, something he wasn’t used to. What had become of him? The lump in his throat seemed unmovable. What would Verain think of him, like this? Well perhaps she would see that he was normal, after all, a quality it was often obvious she craved from him. He just couldn’t be the man she wanted him to be. He wanted to discover things, didn’t he, to push the boundaries of what was known, not to settle for something quiet. Yet she was the only girl who had affected him in recent memory. He knew that, often escaping into her company, her tender affections. Only last month they shared drinks in the corner of a bistro, just like a normal couple, shrouded in that anonymous darkness brought by their fuligin cloaks, and they talked of things that didn’t matter, things that he never knew about her. That she never wanted to be a mother, even though she loved children—because of her own orphaned upbringing. That she disliked sweet foods—something he surely should have noticed. That she feared ever being imprisoned, and would suffer nightmares about it periodically.

It seemed there were worlds to discover in her, too.

She meant something to him, but his newfound situation of losing his immortality had changed the context in which he lived—and he could not let her know she was important to him, not if he was going to die. If only he had just a few more guaranteed years, some time to discover more about these islands that lay under the red sun, about what everything meant, about where their civilization had come from. Such a history had always been there to discover, somewhere. If only he had more time.

If only …

There it was, the uphiminn-kyrr, a hexagonal box constructed from some metal that he could not identify. It was certain there was no known current stock of this ore. It possessed a sheen similar to steel, but the properties and structure were different. Glass dials indicated the points of a compass, with marks indicating degrees of trajectory. He took the box to his chest and left the chamber.

Later, early evening, up on one of the bridges, staring blankly into the wind like he was doing so much these days. If he had so little time left alive, why was he spending much of it experiencing such existential crises? A laugh snapped him out of it. No one was around on this bridge, leading between one derelict building and one disused theater. Occasionally a gust would draw his fuligin cloak across his face, forcing upon him a darkness so total he thought it death itself.

The uphiminn-kyrr was to clear the skies as best as possible. The clouds were potent these days, and they needed dispersal if he was going to travel north for long periods. He placed the device on the ground, set the dials for maximum trajectory, then set it to start. There was a timer that he salvaged from another relic, so he was never quite sure how efficient it was, so he remained focused on the device from a distance of twenty paces. It was like waiting for a firework. The sounds of the city drifted up from below, bottles clinking, a little laughter, reverb of horses’ hooves navigating tight alleyways, every night so similar.

Eventually, a fizz—a light glow from the uphiminn-kyrr, and a small ball of white light launched with velocity into the skies.

He did not know how long it would take to know if it had worked, or even if the effects would be useful, but he had to do all he could.

CHAPTER 16

JERYD WATCHED THE NIGHT SKY VIBRATE WITH LIGHT AND COLOR. MARYSA held his arm tighter. She shivered a little, and he couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or the eerie event above their heads, but it wasn’t important, just that fact that she was holding him once again, just like old times. As the lights reflected off her glossy black eyes, he was so grateful to be with her again. It had taken her absence to make him realize just how much she meant to him, and he was shocked that, as a rumel, he was actually suffering from such emotions as humans normally did.