Kanin Fyre: Chapter 26 - Don’t Meet Your Heroes

Everyone picks themselves up and dusts off their clothes in a bit of a daze. Or at least, Zyneth appears to be so. Mirzayael helps Fyre to her feet, but Zyneth is standing before I have an opportunity to do the same, already sheathing his blades at his hips.

“I think there’s much more we need to discuss after that encounter,” Fyre says, wearily rubbing the bridge of her nose. “But I don’t think any of us are in any state to do so tonight. I’ll try to find time tomorrow when Aquenno is preoccupied—or we can meet again tomorrow night. For now, however, I think we could all use some rest.”

“Good idea,” I agree. Of course, I don’t need rest, but I’m keenly familiar with that bone-deep weariness that sets in when you’re working late and your mind starts to sink into a heavy fog. God knows I pulled more than my fair share of all-nighters in my previous life. 

Zyneth dips his head toward Fyre and Mirzayael. “Then we’ll speak with you again in the morning. Good night to you both, and thank you for your hospitality.” He woodenly turns away. 

All sorts of alarm bells are going off in my head. I start after him, then pause and turn back to the queens. “Ah, Fyre? I still need to talk to you about something before we head out. Can you give me a minute?” 

“Of course,” she agrees, settling into her chair with a tired sigh.

“Thanks. Just—wait one moment, I’ll be right back.” I hurry after Zyneth, only a few paces into the throne room. “Hey! Zyneth.” He slows, waiting for me to catch up. I take his hand, gently pulling him to a stop. “What’s going on? Are you alright?”

He looks at me, but his gaze is distant. “I’m just tired, Kanin. I have a lot to think about, but I’m in no mood to do so now.”

“Okay.” I want to believe him, but it feels like he’s holding back. “If there’s anything you want to talk about, you know I’m here to listen, right?” 

He gives a drained smile. “I know. We’ll talk about it in the morning. Right now, the best thing for me is to get some sleep.”

“Alright,” I reluctantly agree. Zyneth starts to pull away, but I stop him and grab his other hand. I lean in to tap my head against his, and he leans back against me. “Look, I don’t always know how to express it, and words don’t feel like enough, but… I want you to be okay. Because I really care about you. A lot.” 

He closes his eyes, some of the worry lines smoothing from his expression as he lets out a tired sigh. “I love you, too, Kanin.” 

Electricity seems to jolt through my soul. Wait. He what? He—

Zyneth lets go of my hands, pulling back with a faint smile that contains a flicker of his usual impishness. “Good night.”

I’m still rooted in place by the time he disappears through the throne room’s main doors and his footsteps fade down the hall. 

A storm of feelings is swirling through my mind, which is greatly alarming Ink. It doesn’t understand what happened. Why am I hurting? But happy at the same time? This doesn’t make sense. What are these other unfamiliar feelings? They are so strong. It isn’t sure it likes them. Why does this elation ache like a crack in our glass?

I don’t know, I tell Ink. I force myself to wrangle my attention back in from the high Zyneth’s words had buoyed me into. This is new to you and me both, buddy. 

Ink finds this concerning. 

I can only laugh, turning back to Fyre’s office. Mirzayael is still waiting inside with her, the both of them engaged in quiet conversation. 

“...your judgement,” Mirzayael is saying. “But there would be no turning back after this.” 

Fyre laughs weakly. “We’ve passed so many ‘no turning back’ thresholds I’m not sure I even register them anymore.” 

They both look up when I enter. 

“Is everything alright?” Fyre asks me. 

“I think so,” I say, still trying to get Zyneth’s words out of my head. Not that I don’t want them in my head—it’s just incredibly distracting. “If I had to guess, I think he’s having some sort of crisis of faith. Seems like he needs to sleep on it.”

Mirzayael appears oddly smug about this. “Not everything he expected?”

I shrug. “Or it’s all a lot more serious than it had felt before. What I want is against the will of his gods, after all. That’s got to summon some conflicted feelings.” I tip my head at Mirzayael. “You don’t seem very bothered.” 

“No,” she says flatly. “My people have a checkered history with Lorata; we are not particularly fond of the pantheon.” 

Huh, that’s news to me. I sort of figured everyone held respect for the gods to some degree or another. 

“A story for another time,” Fyre says. “What was it you wanted to discuss?”

“Er, it’s more of a heads up than anything,” I say. “Ink and I have an arrangement. Our Influence is about evenly split, so we agreed to split our time, too. It won’t impinge on my control during the day, while it gets to… ah… enjoy more freedom at night.” 

Mirzayael and Fyre stare at me with blank, uncomprehending looks. 

“It doesn’t like being cooped up beneath my coat all day,” I elaborate. “So I let it blow off some steam at night. Stretch its legs. It won’t be a threat to anyone in the city, I promise,” I hurriedly add as concern dawns on Fyre’s face. “Probably it would be best if we went out into the Drifting Isles, anyway. We could even take care of any animals out there that might be bothering the city…” I trail off, realizing none of this is helping me seem more benign. 

Mirzayael gives Fyre a skeptical look. Fyre shakes her head. “You understand why, of course, I don’t like the idea of a remnant running free through our city of its own will?”

“More than you know,” I sigh. “But it won’t be entirely running free or entirely on its own. I don’t expect it to cause any harm, but I’ll be along for the ride if I need to stop it from doing anything.” Probably. 

Fyre’s brows pinch in a faint frown. “You’re speaking of these times where it takes control of your mind.” 

I cringe. “I like to think of it more as sharing my mind.”

Mirzayael looks extremely skeptical. “You’re okay with this arrangement?”

I hold up my hands helplessly. “It’s the best compromise we’ve been able to work out.”

“Alright,” Fyre says slowly. “I know this is not a request; I can’t say I like it, but I appreciate that you’re keeping us informed.”

“No problem,” I say, slumping. God, I hate having to explain all this. Even if I’m getting used to Ink’s presence in my life, I can’t help but feel self conscious when I have to talk about it with others. It feels weirdly private. 

Then again, what’s more private than the autonomy of your mind?

“We’ll be heading out, then,” I say. “Thanks for understanding. Have a good night.”

“Good night, Kanin,” Fyre says as I step out the door. Even though I’m making for the nearest balcony, some of my glass trails far enough behind to catch a few last remarks. 

“We?” Mirzayael says to Fyre. “The way he refers to it concerns me. It sounds far more invasive than your Dungeon Core.” 

“I suspect it is.” Fyre sighs. “I suppose we’ll have to trust him that he has as much control over it as he claims.” 

“And hope that yours doesn’t equally grow in influence.” 

Fyre sounds tired. “That too.”

#

Given how late it was when Zyneth went to bed, we wait until after dawn to return. We tend to wake him up even when we’re trying to be discreet; glass can only be so quiet. 

But our room is empty, and Zyneth’s bed is made. We briefly worry he never made it back the night before. His pack is here, though, and his blades are missing. He probably didn’t sleep for very long. 

We wind through the streets, more cautious now, since the city is lit and its residents are beginning to go about their daily work. Able to sense our Attuned glass within two hundred feet, it doesn’t take very long to find Zyneth. The moment his obsidian blade passes within our range, we make a beeline for it. 

We find Zyneth sitting at the top of a long, narrow staircase that winds down to the base of the city. The path is empty and quiet, providing a clear view of the Drifting Isles’ valley and the farmlands that are beginning to form there. 

I pull my coat out of my Inventory and shrug it on while I approach him from behind—it’s nice having a few more Inventory slots at my disposal.

Zyneth addresses me without turning around. 

“I don’t like this city,” he says. “Reminds me too much of home.” 

I take a seat next to him. “Mount Shale is also a floating city, I take it?”

He exhales in faint amusement. “City-Kingdoms in general. They’re a lot more common in Dunmora than Valenia, which is why I’ve mostly stuck to the latter. I know that’s not fair of me—Fyre and Mirzayael seem to be good rulers. But it doesn’t shake the association.” 

Zyneth has told me bits and pieces about his royal upbringing, but nothing substantial. Mostly that it was suffocating and he ran away the first chance he got. “It’s hard to move on, huh?”

He grimaces. “It would be easier if it weren’t for all my siblings still there. And some of them are perfectly happy to remain—it’s the others I think about.” Zyneth absently casts a pebble down the steps, watching it clatter faintly until it bounces out of sight. “One of my little sisters, Rezym, ran away last year. She came looking for me.”

“What?” I sit up straight. “When? I don’t remember that.” 

He smiles thinly. “It was when we first met. When I left you in Harrowood. Actually, it was the whole reason I was in that area. In Rezym’s effort to find me, she found one of my employers instead, and Vardi was all too happy to try to rope her into the same kind of contract I got tangled up in. I was able to intervene in time, however. I completed the job that was originally meant for my sister, and in exchange, Vardi dissolved the preliminary contract Rezym had about to become bound to. It was a near thing, though.” 

I’m briefly thrown back to a moment a few months ago when Vardi had implied she could get one of Zyneth’s siblings to do a job that Zyneth originally hadn’t wanted to accept; I’d never seen him so angry. A bit of that exchange is starting to make more sense now. 

“She asked to stay with me,” Zyneth says, gaze distant. “I sent her home.”

I tip my head. “Why? I thought you hated it there.” 

“Because she was about to make the exact same mistakes I did,” Zyneth hisses. “We grew up in a palace! All our needs met, every ask provided for. Do you think we ever learned the real value of currency? When I left, all I had were my artificing tools and a pouch of coins in my pocket. I blew through them far more quickly than I should have. And when they were out, I found my current employers. Or, more accurately, they found me. The promise of adventure—and pay—was too tempting for me to pass up. I signed far too many contracts before understanding what I was really getting myself into. I was easy prey to exploit, and my siblings would be just the same.”

“But you stopped your sister before it got to that point,” I say. “Why did you send her home?”

Zyneth grimaces. “Because I still have debts that need to be paid. As long as I have those ties, any of my siblings who stayed with me would be at risk of getting pulled in, too. But I’m so close.” He absently touches his arm, where his remaining debts are magically tattooed to his skin. “One more job for Vardi. Perhaps two more for Clement.”

He lapses into wistful silence.

“And then what?” I prompt. “You’ll be out of the underworld, but you’ll also be out of money, right?”

He finally glances at me out of the corner of his eye with a sly smile. “I might have gone into everything with eyes closed, but I wisened up pretty fast. I’ve been stashing a few extra coins here and there—stretching the boundaries of each job to take advantage where I could. It’s nothing compared to the wealth I left, but it’s enough to help support my siblings and prevent them from becoming reliant on illicit income streams as I did.” 

His smile softens into something more gentle. “Some nights I dream about building a large house where we could all live. A giant kitchen where we could cook together—no servants to pick out your meals and clothes, no dining rooms with assigned seats and pre-determined talking points. The twins could share a bedroom, like they’ve always wanted. And every door could only be locked from the inside.”

I try to picture myself in this dream of his, and I’m not sure I can see myself there with him. A bunch of happy family members all living under one roof feels foreign to me. Nice, of course, but I don’t see how I would fit in.

“I’m not sure I’d be good with kids,” I admit. 

Zyneth laughs, turning to look at me face-on. His eyes are crinkled in affection. “They’d all be adults—or nearly adults—by this time anyway. But I’m glad your first thought was to assume you’d also be part of this future.” 

“Oh,” I say, slightly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“No.” Zyneth puts his hand on mine leaning against my arm. “I’m glad.” 

He’s getting me all mixed up inside again. For about the hundredth time, I replay the words he’d said to me the night before. I’ve never said those words to anyone. Anyone. Hell, I’ve never even had a TV part that’s made me say them. 

But he’s the only person I’ve ever wanted to hear say them to me. 

And now I’m going to drag him into a conflict with the heavens? After everything he’s already done? With all his family he still needs to care for? Who am I to upend his life like this? 

“Look,” I say. “About last night…”

“You don’t have to say it back,” Zyneth assures me. “I know things take longer for you.”

“Uh, right. Sorry. Thank you.” Do things take longer for me? I guess so. Probably the fact that Zyneth is my only serious partner I’ve ever had is indicative of that. I always told myself that I just didn’t have time for relationships. Was that true, or was something else going on? I shake my head. I’m getting off track. “Actually, though, I wanted to talk about the god stuff.”

“Ah.” His expression grows more serious. “Of course.” 

“I can’t pretend to know what this is like,” I say. “Meeting one of your gods in the flesh—or whatever they’re made of. And me asking you to go against them. Especially when you have your siblings to think of. This isn’t fair of me, and I know it. If you want to sit this out, like Noli and Rezira did, I wouldn’t blame you. Actually, putting some distance between us until all this is over is probably for the best.” 

Zyneth blinks, a look of puzzlement overcoming his expression. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, being close to me is probably a liability,” I admit. “It might even make you a target. If you wanted to focus on your family instead…”

Zyneth laughs skeptically. “Kanin, are you really trying to break up with me right after I said ‘I love you’?”

Before I can get out a spluttering objection, Zyneth continues. “Absolutely not, and I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in that matter. Even if I can’t go with you, as last night’s visitor implied, I will still help you prepare—and in every other capacity I can.”

His words fill me with so much relief and happiness—and strangely, a small degree of guilt. “Are you sure? I mean, all of this still has to be a lot.” 

“It is,” Zyneth agrees, looking back out over the brightening valley. “And I would be lying if I said it doesn’t frighten me—that I don’t still have hesitations. Learning there is such unrest in the heavens is troubling, and it leaves me questioning which side, if any, is in the wrong. I won’t lie to you, Kanin; it is difficult to stomach the idea of defying the gods.” 

I had guessed much of this already. “But?” I ask. I take a shard of glass and also toss it down the steps, mimicking Zyneth, but before the piece bounces out of sight, I pull it back to me. Zyneth chuckles at the display. 

“But,” he says, “you got me thinking about my family. What I wouldn’t do to help my siblings escape and be safe—even if it meant going against the will of my parents. Just because someone has the power to do something doesn’t make that act right, and I’ve never viewed the gods as infallible. Going against them frightens me, yes. It challenges my instincts to bow to their authority. But I’ve fought through it before, and I know I can make myself do it again. When I think of my siblings, still waiting for me to offer them a way out, I believe I understand some of the guilt and responsibility you also feel for these Travelers. So I am here to stay, and I am here to help, and that’s something you’ll just have to accept.”

My soul feels ready to burst with relief. “I do,” I say. 

Ink sighs. Is this tortuous exchange of feelings over yet?