“We fought someone who could ignore the cost?”
Kyla gave a small shrug. “It appears that way. But we know little.”
Brandt looked up into the night sky. “Sometimes I think I should return to Landow and try to find my answers there.”
“An understandable desire, but foolish. There is no guarantee that the one who compelled you is still there. There has been no further violence since you left. It’s been months since the incident, and no new information has emerged.”
Brandt acknowledged her point but hated it anyway. He returned to the question that had no answer he would accept.
“So, what do you know about avoiding the cost?”
Kyla spoke slowly. “I believe that avoiding the cost requires the use of specific stones.”
“Like the one in your office?”
Kyla nodded. “Some of us have made it our life’s work to study them. The monasteries are only in possession of four, each a fragment of the same stone discovered some years ago in Falar. There are far more questions about them than answers, but they have effects that defy what we understand about affinities.”
“Like being able to hear more than one element?”
“Exactly. Although perhaps ‘defy’ isn’t the correct term. They make us question everything we believe is true.”
She gave Brandt a moment to understand her meaning. When he did, he stopped walking. “You’re saying anyone with an affinity actually possesses all affinities?”
Kyla looked both ways, appearing as though she was making sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “I believe an idea even more outlandish. I believe that all people possess all affinities.”
“What?” Brandt couldn’t imagine that being true. It went against everything they knew.
“Do you know when the first affinities were recorded?”
Brandt searched his memory. “About the time of Anders I.” It was said that Anders I had a stone affinity, a fact others with the affinity held as proof of their superiority. In the stories of his ascension to the throne, he had often used the affinity to prove his right to rule.
Brandt, and most people, believed the stories of Anders I to be exaggerations of the truth. No man could crush dozens of soldiers at a time with a flying boulder, a commonly held myth.
“Exactly,” Kyla replied. “We don’t know of any affinities before Anders I. Don’t you think, if there had been affinities throughout our history, we would have heard of them?”
“But there isn’t much left of the time before.” Anders I’s conquest of the continent had destroyed much of the history that had come before. The order of the empire had come at a cost.
“But there is enough we would have heard something. At least, that is what I believe.”
“You think affinities only began when Anders I was alive?”
“Or that it was the first time they were strong enough to observe. I don’t know. But I do know there isn’t anything about affinities prior to the founding of the empire.”
“That proves little.”
“Did you know that every year, more people with affinities are discovered?”
Brandt grunted in surprise.
“The numbers of those with affinities are growing. The emperor keeps lists, and the evidence is there for anyone willing to look.”
“What are you saying?”
“That as a people, I believe our affinities are getting stronger. That’s my theory. I can’t prove it yet, but it’s a story that fits the facts.”
They walked in silence, Brandt digesting the idea. He didn’t believe it. There were too many other possible explanations. They were getting better at identifying those with affinities and training them. Their record keeping was improving. There was no need for Kyla’s odd ideas.
“How does this help me?”
“You know what I think when I look at that stone in my desk?”
Brandt gave her a blank look.
“I think that what we don’t know about these powers is far greater than what we do. Right now, the cost seems real, but there are these small pieces of evidence that suggest that maybe we’re wrong. Start with our assumptions. Question them all.”
“Easier said than done.”
“True. Keep working at the problem, though. It’s a worthy one. It might be the only one that matters.”
They were coming off the wall for the night when a lone figure appeared on the road, walking toward them. Brandt and Kyla both stopped to watch. Brandt thought there was something familiar about the figure, but he couldn’t be sure.
They kept their watch as the figure continued to approach with sure steps.
Eventually, the visitor was close enough that Brandt could make out her face. He almost fell to his knees at the sight.
“Ana?”
38
Every day Alena looked over her shoulder, expecting to find an even larger force bearing down on them. But the plains remained empty.
She supposed that wasn’t true. Thanks to Azaleth’s patient instruction, Alena came to understand that what looked empty was in fact full of life. He pointed out deer hiding in tall grass, their coats nearly invisible to the untrained eye. Enormous birds flocked overhead, and he introduced her to a wide menagerie of small critters who called the grasslands their home.
But the only humans she saw were the Etari, bringing her more deeply into their land and their lives.
Alena spent most of her waking hours with Azaleth. The two of them drove a cart together, and she suspected the young man considered her some sort of hero. His patience with her ignorance went far beyond what she expected. She had tried a bird call for an entire morning, causing the rest of the Etari to gradually pull away. But he remained, helping her develop the technique.
She didn’t deserve his kindness, even if she’d helped him in Tonno.
She was a fool tossed about by the winds of fate. Her choices drove her from her own home and haunted her across the empire and beyond. She was lost, following whatever path presented itself to her.
But Azaleth was one of the kindest young men she had ever met, and she tried hard to be a worthy student. For the first time, the skills that had served her well throughout life failed her. She was given
