Before he could respond, the sound of Idris rising and padding wearily across to join the both of them caught both of their attentions.

  “It is good to see you both risen, we have a busy day ahead of us. We must decide on a course of action.”

  There was a visceral snap as Raelynn whirled and stood in one fluid motion, the stick of charcoal she’d snapped with her closing fist crumbling to the ground through clenched fingers. Idris’ eyes sharpened almost imperceptibly as Raelynn stalked towards him, but he didn’t shrink back from the younger woman’s smouldering anger.

  “There is no decision,” she ground out. Idris was taller than Raelynn by some way, but now she seemed to tower over him as she jabbed her finger into Idris’ chest. “Taran is still captive. I will not leave him, and Casek has already agreed to help. We go to Pyry.”

  Idris met her fury with steely composure. There were no angry gestures, or raised voices from the older man, only calmly delivered truths.

  “You know it is not so simple, Raelynn. If Casek is truly on our side, then he is too valuable to risk—especially on a foolish, suicidal venture into the most Shadow-dense place in Pyria.”

  For the first time since he’d met her, the walls surrounding Raelynn had begun to crack. Her gritted teeth and tight jaw muscles still projected barely contained righteous fury, but it warred with the trembling of her hands and liquid shine of her eyes Casek could see even from where he sat.

  “This is Taran we’re talking about, Idris. Not just anybody. He—”

  “Would agree with every word I’m saying now,” Idris said softly, before his voice hardened once more. “It doesn’t matter who it is. One life is not worth risking this opportunity—the fact that this is Taran isn’t a factor.”

  “Isn’t a factor?” Raelynn muttered, incredulous. “Of course it's a bloody factor! How could you of all people say otherwise?”

  “And how could you of all people question my feelings on this?” Idris shot back. “You don’t think I spent my time inside the crystal—every torturous, waking second—imagining everything that could be happening to him? That I don’t lie awake now that I’m free doing the same? And even knowing what I consign him to, knowing the pain I will have to bear for this choice, I still make it. Because it is right. Because I know better than any—even better than you—that it is what Taran would choose for us. If it were me in his shoes, I would choose the same.”

  “If it were you in his place, Taran would never abandon you the way you’re set on doing to him. He would come for you, no matter the cost.”

  Idris flinched as though struck, the first chink Raelynn had found in the man’s inscrutable emotional armour, and he quickly covered it with a loose shrug. “Perhaps you are right. But then, he is the kind of man that could have succeeded. A hero. Alas, he is the one prisoned and I am the one free, no matter how much you might wish the roles were reversed.”

  Raelynn said nothing. Sometimes the absence of words cut far deeper than any spoken ever could. Instead she stalked past him, into the forest past her camp, and Idris sagged down onto a log stump seat beside what remained of that night’s fire.

  Casek said nothing for a time, allowing Idris time to process their argument. Pieces were falling into place for him, though he didn’t have all the information necessary to complete a picture. Raelynn’s insistence on rescuing her comrades, her willingness to sacrifice everything for them, had not aligned well with the grim precipice humanity lay on the edge of, nor with Raelynn’s hope for its future.

  Whatever the truth, she, Idris and Taran were far more than simply comrades.

  Eventually, he stood, exhaling deeply before turning to Idris. “I’ll go check on her—see what I can do to bring her back before she gets in trouble.”

  The older man nodded, though his gaze stayed firmly locked on the fading fire. Casek swallowed before heading for the dimly lit treeline Raelynn had stalked into. Fortunately, she had not gone far. To wander too far from help into the wild would have been a mistake even Raelynn’s fury-clouded mind couldn’t be tempted into.

  She didn’t acknowledge him at first, pacing back and forth across the clearing she’d stopped in like a caged wolf, muttering furiously to herself, presumably stewing over Idris. Casek merely waited for her to be ready—startling an angry bear was never wise.

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  Finally, she paused. “I suppose he sent you out after me?”

  Casek shook his head. “No, actually. He was pretty despondent after you left. I just thought I’d come and see how you were doing. I don’t really know the context, but that seemed pretty intense. You guys must all have been pretty close.”

  Raelynn snorted, but a small smile played across her face, even as her eyes became distant. “You have no idea.”

  “Would it help if you told me about it?”

  She glanced at him and shrugged. “No idea. I don’t see how it would hurt, though. And you probably deserve a little context, caught in the middle of it as you are.”

  “I don’t want to pry, or make you uncom-”

  “You’re not,” Raelynn said, massaging her temple. “None of it is secret, really, and most is old news, anyway. The short of it is, Taran and Idris damn near raised me together. My parents died when I was too small to even remember them.”

  “No other family?” Casek asked, then immediately winced at the insensitivity of the question. “Sorry, that was a stupid question, given the state of the world.”

  “In your defence, you’ve only been living in it for a few days. And, not for a long time, no. I lived with my Grandfather until I was eleven. He was a chronicler—a collector of lore and old books—he’s where my interest in history came from. After that, Taran and Idris took me in. Taught me to fight, and to bind. I loved my Grandfather, and he was my blood, but he was so often away from Oreia and when he wasn’t, he was wrapped up in his own grief… Idris and Taran always felt like my real parents, no matter how long it took to actually find them.”

  “And now, after everything, youface the prospect of leaving one of them behind even though we might be able to save him.”

  Raelynn’s jaw tightened, and Casek’s breath caught as he tensed in anticipation of an outburst. None came. Instead, Raelynn’s voice was deathly quiet, and vulnerable in a way he’d not heard before.

  “Do you know what the worst thing is, Casek? I know Idris is right. Wherever your abilities have come from, I trust you. You’re our best hope of fighting back. All things considered, nobody’s life is more important than yours right now. A dozen Binders could be killed or taken getting you back to Oreia safely, and logically it would be an acceptable sacrifice. Taran himself would be giving me a righteous earful if he knew I wanted to take you into Pyry with me to rescue him. Logically it’s an absurd choice.”

  “But logic only means so much when it comes to protecting your family, right?”

  Muscles taut with anger and grief trembled and, finally, the last of Raelynn’s walls came down. Tears tracked silently down her face as she met his eyes.

  “You saw the people you freed in Makavi,” she said between ragged breaths. “Some were so broken they couldn’t even stand and run to free themselves. How can I leave him to become like them? How am I ever supposed to choose that?”

  “You don’t have to. Whatever we decide to do, we won’t leave him. If we have to go to Oreia first, then that’s what we have to do. But we’ll come back for him once we’ve done what needs to be done.”

  Raelynn smiled, but it was tainted with bitter sadness. “Casek, do you really think that once you reach Oreia and they find out what you can do, that you’ll be allowed to leave it again? Until they can replicate what you can do, your abilities are a weapon The Circle won’t allow out of sight.”

  Casek’s heart sank. He’d had similar suspicions but to hear it so readily confirmed was disappointing. After so long in one cage, merely trading it for another seemed unconscionable, no matter how little of his time in the first he remembered.

  There was no telling how short lived his new life might be, he had little interest in spending any of it’s precious hours not in control of it.

  “I’m presuming the Circle are what the command structure in Oreia is called?”

  Raelynn nodded. “Generals of the Binder Corps, most of them, with a few high-ranking civilians to make decisions about that side of things. Hedrek is the High Seat—means he has the decisive say when they’re not agreeing. They do a good job given the circumstances, and they’re certainly not foolish enough to allow you to risk everything to save one man. No matter the man.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “It says a lot about you that you’re willing to offer to help—especially after I near-enough forced you into Makavi. You’re a good man, Casek, but I need to accept reality. No matter how much I hate it, this is what life for us is now. Small victories smothered by devastating loss after devastating loss. Every single one of us left alive knows the cycle intimately.”

  Casek tried to find the words to disagree, but they stuck in his throat like tar. How could he argue against Raelynn’s experience of the cold reality of a world he was entirely new to? How could anything he had to say hold any weight against a lifetime of suffering and war? He, of course, had known both things in his life, but this was different. This was a world that had known little else for nearly a thousand years.

  So, even as Raelynn shuffled past him, forlorn, back toward camp, he said nothing. But, as he watched her fade back between the trees, he felt something stir in him, a determination he’d not felt since he’d awoken in this new world. Despite her initially prickly nature, he’d come to like her—and not just for a lack of other options. She was a fundamentally good person despite having plenty of good reasons to not be, and despite not trusting him, she’d done what she could to give him the tools to survive.

  Casek didn’t much care for Oreia—it was a place he’d never known, nor held any attachment to. Neither was he particularly interested in saving the world beyond the understanding that he’d likely never be able to live in peace if he didn’t. But Raelynn? Raelynn he cared for, and in time he’d likely be able to say the same about Idris. He wanted to help them far more than he desired to be held in Oreia, and if at all possible, give them back some of the hope this world had stolen.

  And if words alone could not convince somebody there was hope where they saw none, he would just have to prove it.