Estella swayed slightly on her feet; in all honesty she probably shouldn't be up and moving right now, but there was little to be done for it. Zathrand was irritatedāinsofar as he ever expressed irritationāthat her second trial was indeed the day immediately following the first, but he had dutifully led her to the Catacombs' entrance anyway, taking some care to select the paths which would put the least strain on her.
There hadn't been much to say this timeāher companions had only been able to accompany her to the entrance and not inside, and they'd be led right back up to the city afterwards. She almost hadn't wanted Ves to have to make the walk, but she hadn't said that; it didn't take too much imagination to figure out how she would have felt in his place, and a sentiment like that wouldn't have gone over well. The Ghilan'al had informed her that the one rule of the trial was that she wasn't permitted to leave the Catacombs for the full period of time, which meant that they'd be sending someone in to retrieve her at noon three days hence. She had a small satchel with basic food and water provisions, but anything else she needed, she would have to find some way of obtaining herself.
After a brief opportunity for farewells, she was ushered into the catacombs, and the stone doors closed behind her. They would not be impossible to open if she so wished, but the point was that doing so was a forfeiture. As far as she was concerned, they may as well have sealed them shut.
The air in here was cool, even through the sleeves of the tunic that had replaced her first. There must have been some cultural significance to the color white that no one had explained outright. It was also, she noted, very dark; if not for the blue veins of lyrium overhead, she would not have been able to see so much as her hand in front of her face. As it was, the path inwards was slow goingāEstella kept her hand to the smooth wall to her left in part for guidance and in part because she couldn't walk well unassisted yet. Still... she couldn't just spend three days right next to the entrance. It was probably better to keep the temptation of the doors out of sight, if this was really as much of a trial as Harellan had said it would be.
The path into the catacombs proper sloped gradually downwards beneath her feet, the slight scuff of her boots the only sound that reached her. Even that seemed to echo far too much in the tunnel. Stone passed beneath her fingertips, surely carved with magic, for no mundane tools could wear it this smooth. Not that she knew of, anyway. Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the gloom, allowing her to at least make out the contours of the passage, the way the ceiling arched to a point over the exact line of the hallway's center.
She could see metal brackets fused into the walls, the catches for torches that no longer burned, nor indeed even sat cold. Estella wondered if they might have been removed intentionally, to make it more difficult to navigate the passage. If it was really used as a test of character, then overcoming the oppressive feeling of the darkness might well be part of it.
By the time the passage changed around her, her legs had already begun to shake with the strain of walking in her condition. Her breath quivered on every exhale, and it was cold enough down here that she could see it fog into the air in front of her, just as tremulous in sight as in sound. Estella licked her lips, finding them suddenly dry, and peered upwards.
It seemed she had come to a crossroads; eight passages yawned open in front of her, each as dark as the next. At the top of each arched frame, the lyrium had, either by accident, confluence, or design, come to resemble the same symbols as those that adorned each of the Ghilan'al. The houses, and the Evanuris with whom they were so closely connected. She almost didn't have to look to see which passage bore the tree; it was as though something inside her was magnetized towards it, the tugging of an invisible but insistent tether, or a sort of distorted gravity.
She was hesitant to trust it, to believe that it was real at allāHarellan had said that this was a place of illusion, after all, and she of all people well understood that the Fade was rarely a benevolent place. She wondered how her ancestors had made it into a thing of such wonder as it was described, when now it was so fearful and desolate.
But though she willed it away, the sense of connection did not disappear, and she pressed her lips together. It seemed as though she ought to take some path; it was hard to see what perils this one in particular could hold that the others could not. So Estella pulled in a deep breath, the chill prickling her lungs, and headed for the passage with Mythal's sigil above it.
Here, the walls changed. From the way the darkness bent and twisted, diving into hollows and receding away from crests, she could make out the elegant curls and twists of elvish writing. It was difficult to make out all the words when the script was so calligraphic, but they seemed to be blessings, prayers for benevolence and hymns to the dead. She traced one of the lines of script with her fingers as she walked, reading the words aloud in a soft voice.
"Melava inan enansal
ir su aravel tu elvaral
u na emma abelas
in elgar sa vir mana
in tu setheneran din emma na."
It took her several seconds to parse the meaning; the language seemed to be some kind of lyrical shorthand, making it difficult to follow from just knowledge of ordinary spoken elvish. But she thought it must be kind of lamentation for the loss of eternity. Perhaps a fitting sentiment, considering that these people would surely not have always needed to have crypts.
Her fingers alit on something new; a crease in the stone of the wall. With too much effort, Estella summoned a magelight to the tip of her finger, releasing the marble-sized spell to hover near her head. It only reached a few feet out in any direction, but even that was enough to understand what she'd found.
The inset in the wall could only be for an ossuary. Peering closer, she found a name inscribed. Misyl Saeris. A relative, perhaps? This would surely be their part of the catacombs. Probably the entire chamber was filled with relatives. Estella shuddered, from the cold or something else, she could not say.
Further in, the chamber opened up, its ceiling vaulting high overhead. It appeared to be in the shape of a perfect circle, all lined with more individual names. In the center was a freestanding statue, of a tall, dignified woman in armor, bearing a sword in each hand and armor inscribed with the selfsame tree. Her features were sharp, beautiful in the way that winter was beautiful: a cold sort of perfection, delicacy a mere polite veneer on elemental strength. Her posture was straight-backed, proud, though she was evidently relaxed enough that her swords were crossed point-down in front of her, held in an expert but loose grip in her hands. Loose hair cascaded about her in waves, impractically descending to her knees.
Somehow, she even overshadowed the dragon that loomed behind her, its back arched in such a way as to suggest protectiveness. The single large eye that Estella could see had a hard expression to it, reinforced by the scaly ridge of its brow. Its tail draped in front of the woman, lifted off the ground in a curl almost feline.
Actually... Estella moved closer, her attention drawn by what seemed to be an irregularity. Where the dragon's tail ended was quite close to where the woman's swords crossed, and the two things together seemed to form a small recession of sorts. Peering at the spot, Estella noticed how the stone seemed to have been worn slightly in that area, as though another object had sat against it for a very long time, or else the statue had been built with such an object in mind. If she had her guess, it would be something roughly the size of a person's head or a particularly well-grown summer melon, and about the same shape.
Curious, she made a full circuit of the statue, but no such object was anywhere to be found. Perhaps it had been removed, or perhaps she was simply imagining that any such thing had existed at all. She released a breath, almost disappointed, and went back to following the trail of names. So many went by; she could spent a whole day in here and probably not get through half of them, but the room narrowed to a hallway again at the opposite side from where she'd entered, and it seemed that the names became more recent as she continued, long generations passing from Misyl to the last.
A sudden thought struck her, and Estella tried to pick her feet up faster, barely pausing to focus on any of the names at all, intent on reaching the most recent burials. Her feet scuffed on the stone floor as she hastened, mind alive but body worn down by fatigue and the lingering toll of her injuries. Eventually the magelight winked out, as even the miniscule thread of mana necessary to sustain it slipped away from her grasp. Still, she kept moving.
At last, she reached a bank of unmarked insets, backtracking the few steps necessary to find the very last ones before that. She could feel her heart thudding hard in her chest, too much exertion and just a thin spike of dread. She knew what she'd seeāand yet somehow it still took her by surprise when she actually saw it.
Mahvir Saeris.
Her father.
Her father.
Estella's knees buckled, unable to hold her weight any longer, and she leaned forward, pressing her forehead into the stone that bore his name. She didn't know what she was supposed to think or feel, seeing this, but something rose in her throat, thick and cloying. Her fingertips curved as far as they could into the engraved characters.
His name meant tomorrow. The future. To her it sounded as though someone had named him with hope that he would be a better future. No doubt a heavy burden to carry. She couldn't help but wonder how he'd felt about that, having such a thing placed on his shoulders with just a name. The best of us, Harellan had said. She wouldn't know the first thing about what that was like, but...
Estella didn't know how long she spent there, brow resting as close to her father as she would ever be, but in time she became aware that she was starting to stiffen from the cold, and that she grew hungry and tired in the normal way, and not just the way her injuries exhausted her. Forcing a few preparatory breaths in and out of her lungs, she pulled herself to her feet, reluctantly stepping away from the ossuary and continuing down the passage. Somehow, she really didn't want to eat her dinner in the company of the dead. There was a hollow ache in her chest, and she rubbed absently at the spot through her tunic, feeling the stiffness start to abate as she warmed her muscles with motion.
Or perhaps it was the air around her that was warming up a little. In fact, that was almost surely it, because the ground was sloping upwards again. Ahead of her, she almost thought she could see light. Sunlight, not merely lyrium-light.
It was several minutes of climbing, but when the tunnel ended, it put her out in a much more natural-looking cavern, one that was partially open to the sky above. The forest's natural foliage grew here, nurtured by the sun and no doubt by the clear, shallow lake at her feet. The angle of the light illuminated floating motes of flower pollen, the late evening hues of red, gold, and purple giving the entire scene an almost soporific tranquility.
Estella's fatigue hit her like a wall, all at once, and it was all she could do to stagger to the base of the nearest tree, planting herself on some springy moss and leaning back against the trunk. Her eyelids felt heavy, and though some part of her was distantly alarmed that she should fall asleep so quickly in an unfamiliar and dangerous place, no such thought could keep her from drifting away to just that.
When she woke, it was to the familiar sound of a campfire burning, dry wood popping beneath the flames. Reluctant to stir, she pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders and rolled over, lifting some of the wool over her head to block out the light. Cor always stayed up a lot later than the rest of them, when they camped. He joked that he was getting in touch with his forgotten heritage, roughing it in the wilds, when they all knew he vastly preferred the raucous warmth of a good tavern.
As the one who was usually up the earliest, it was not a habit she particularly appreciated; even now she could hear him moving around, pots and pans banging together as he tried to assemble something to eat, most likely.
Wait.
She had a blanket. She was laying on her side. And she wasn't alone. None of those things trackedāshe'd gone to sleep by herself and sitting up, hadn't she?
"Well, well. Look who's awake. Rise and shine, princess, it's time for dinner." She didn't recognize the voice, and the jovial, smarmy tone of it did nothing to put her at ease. Cautiously, Estella sat up, well aware of the fact that she was unarmed, though she couldn't quite remember why, or where exactly she was.
"There she is. Looks like you had a nice nap. You've got, uh..." The man across the fire from her gestured vaguely to his head.
Thoughtlessly, Estella mirrored the motion, finding that her hair was everywhere, as usual when she didn't tie it before sleeping. She patted it down awkwardly, staring mutely at the campsite's other occupant.
He looked... like a younger version of Harellan. Or what she imagined a younger version of Harellan must have been like. Sitting in a crouch, he was occupied stirring something in a small pot over the fire with a tin ladle. He must have felt the weight of her eyes on him, however, because he glanced up, meeting them with spring-green ones. The firelight warmed his face to almost a honey color, throwing pale shadows from the sharp angles of it. She wouldn't say he resembled Cyrus, exactly, but she got the same kind of... feeling, looking at him, as though some intangible thing were the same between them. Maybe it was a physical resemblance too subtle to point to in the way one could point to the shape of a nose or the slope of a brow.
"Am I really that interesting?" He tilted his head to the side, a glint appearing at his ear, where a finely-crafted cuff made of golden wire lined the helix, the pattern one of leaves and branches. He arched a dark brow, nicked at the outer edge by a small scar. Not a feature Harellan shared.
"You're... you're Mahvir Saeris."
He blinked at her, then sighed. "To be honest, I was kind of hoping you'd go with 'dad,' but... yes. You called?" A sly smile curled the corner of his mouth, and then she understood why he reminded her so much of Cyrus. It changed the entire landscape of his face in just the same sort of way.
Estella opened her mouth to reply, but found that no words came out. Instead, she sat in silence for several minutes, something which didn't seem to particularly bother him. While she twisted the blanket around in her hands, he continued to cook, occasionally rummaging through his knapsack and pulling out a canister or glass vessel of something and adding it to the pot in a way that suggested an ease bordering on recklessness.
She couldn't understand how her imagination could have conjured him up. No one had ever told her anything about how he looked beyond that he was Harellan's identical twin. She wondered if the scar and the flashy jewelry were really things he'd had, or if she'd just supplied them to the dream because she already knew what Harellan looked like and felt that there had to be some difference. It made about as much sense as any other explanation, though where she'd gotten this personality from was also a mystery.
"You're not real," she said suddenly. Obviously he couldn't be. Whether she was actually still asleep or the Catacombs were conjuring all of this, she had no idea, but she'd walked past his tomb herself. He couldn't be real.
He frowned at her. "Well that's rude. Do you regularly tell people you've just met that they don't exist, or am I particularly lucky?"
"What? No, Iā" Estella pulled in a breath. "It's just... my father is dead. This is his tomb... and a lot of other people as well. You can't be real."
He scoffed softly, shaking his head, but his expression gentled to something warmer. "Of course I'm dead," he replied easily. "In a manner of speaking, anyway. But that doesn't mean I'm not real, and I'll thank you to remember it." Reaching down beside him, he picked up a thin stone bowl of some kind and spooned what looked to be a type of grain mash into it, setting it down and repeating the process with a second.
Estella tried to parse that. Maybe this was something a little bit like what had happened with Divine Justinia? She still had no idea exactly who or what that entity had been, but at the very least, she was collected... emotions, or wishes, or something connected to the actual woman. If this man was even something like that, then...
"I don't think I understand," she admitted, watching as he stood to his full height. Probably about the same as Harellan in that respect, too, though he had a different way of moving. More direct where Harellan was subtle. Like he was used to being open about what he was after and what he was about. Was it strange to read so much into a particular way of walking? She didn't think so, but maybe she was so desperate for information that she was giving meaning to things that didn't have it.
He sat next to her with a gusty exhalation, handing her one of the bowls and a spoon. They both felt solid, so Estella assumed this was a dream, as spirits were most often... less substantial in reality. The warmth seeping into her hands felt very real, though. When she lifted a spoonful to her mouth, it tasted... well, frankly bizarre. Probably something to do with all the random ingredients he'd thrown into it. It wasn't bad, exactly, just strange. These details were bothering her in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on.
"I'd explain it, but I can't say I really understand it, either," he admitted. "Telahn was always the smarter one, and much more interested in this kind of thing. He might know. You should ask him sometime." He crossed his legs underneath himself and steadily mowed through his food.
At some length, he glanced askance at her. "Well, come on then. You've got questions, and I'm your best shot at answers, so go ahead."
Estella ate at a much more subdued pace, still not entirely sure that she was eating at all. If this was merely a dream, though, it was one that felt more real than any she'd had before. Maybe it couldn't hurt to ask some things at least; she could always check if they were true with Harellan later.
"Telahn," she repeated, trying the name out. Voiceless. Clearly someone had not had such high hopes for him. "Is that... the name of your brother?" She couldn't think of anyone else it could be.
Her fatherāor whatever wore the face she imagined was hisānodded slightly. "We don't get our names until we've done what you're doing now," he explained, as though this helped to clear things up. "The ones we use as adults, that is." Reaching over, he served himself more of the mash, sighing heavily when he sat back. At some point, he'd drawn close enough that she could feel a trace of his body heat. Somehow she knew that if she touched him, he'd be just as substantial as a real person.
But then... he contended that he was one. Estella stared hard at her food before taking another slow bite.
"Isāis my mother here somewhere?" Her eyes remained fixed on her food.
He hummed, almost under his breath. "I haven't found her," he said softly, the tone quite different from his previous easy manner. "I suppose that's to be expected. I don't know exactly how long after me she was killed, or where they interred her, or if she's still herself. Even if she were... the Fade is every bit as large as the material world. I could wander for ages and never find her."
Estella sneaked a glance at him, to find that he'd stopped eating as well, and was rotating his bowl in his hands instead, keeping his thumbs on the lip of it and turning it in absent circles. "Someday." She wasn't even sure he was talking to her. Maybe he was only speaking to himself. "Someday we'll meet again."
Though subdued, the words were spoken with such conviction that she almost found herself believing them. Who was to know how these things worked, anyway? If he could be here, talking to her like this, was it really so impossible to believe that somewhere else, her mother might wander the Fade intact as well? That in all the ages yet to come, or someplace in the timeless Fade, that they might just meet again?
Next to her, he took in a sharp breath, shaking himself out of what seemed to be an apparent daze. "Anyway, enough about that for now. Why don't you tell me about you?"
So she told him. About her friends, about the Inquisition and the people she loved, and then about older things, skirting carefully around the one thing she hadn't told anyone, but sensing somehow that he knew it anyway. If he'd really come from her thoughts, he surely must have. Mahvir listened in silence, studying her face as she talked, and though she probably should have, Estella couldn't manage to feel too self-conscious about it.
"It sounds like you've had a difficult life," he said when she was through, turning slightly so as to be facing her more directly.
She grimaced, reluctant to agree. "I don't know that I would call it difficult, exactly." Compared to what some of her friends had gone throughācompared to what some of them still went throughāshe hardly believed she had any right to complain.
He shook his head. "No," he replied. "It was. I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been."
"What do you mean?" Estella felt a vague sense of alarm, as though something about those words wasn't quite right. But she couldn't put her finger on it, and her focus seemed to slip from her every time she tried, as though she were getting sleepy again and just couldn't keep a grip on her thoughts.
"You never knew me," he said softly, pushing several strands of black hair behind his ear. "But you've wanted to. How hard did you search for that feeling, Estella? How long? Aren't you still searching for it, even now?" His stare was intent, now, earnest, like he was willing her to understand something by the strength of his feelings alone. Like he needed the affirmation.
Estella parted her lips to speak, but had to close them again. So close. Too close, to those thoughts she always shied away from. The things she'd never let herself say aloud. "I don't know what you mean," she protested, shaking her head far too vigorously. Rilien had taught her how to lie, so why had she forgotten it now?
"Yes you do." The statement was absolute, the terms in no way uncertain. Nothing about his demeanor threatened her; little in it had actually changed. His hands remained folded in his lap, his posture relaxed. Even the words were spoken gently, though there was iron beneath the velvet of them. "How long have you been trying to make a home? A family? Out of whatever you could lay your hands upon. Out of poison and out of people who wouldn't ever need you the way you needed them?"
"S-stop." She shifted, moving herself a few feet further from him, but her limbs were weak, her muscles slow to respond to her commands.
"You've been given every reason to stop trying, but you haven't. And isn't that just because relinquishing that dream would be the only thing worse than continuing to fail at it? It's always there, isn't it? The longing. For what other people take for granted so easily. For what they willingly abandon." Mahvir tilted his head. "But it's always taken from you, some way or another. Everything you love. Every life you begin to build."
Estella shuddered, fighting back the tears that threatened. "Please don't say anymore. I can'tā"
But her wishes were not to be granted, not in this respect. "Even this one, right?" He slumped, an edge of grief to his posture now. "It will end, just like all the rest. Shatter fragment by fragment until there's nothing left of it. You're here to try and stop the breaking, but you're not even sure it will work."
"I said stop!" Estella curled her hands into fists, fighting away the fatigue and trying to get her fuzzy thoughts in order. Her fingernails bit into her palms, the sharp sting helping her chase away the fog in her mind. "That might beāthat might be true. But what's the use in telling me like this? You're not saying anything I don't already know." She blinked rapidly several times, unable to hold onto the indignation she'd seized for any longer than a moment.
"But what if it didn't have to be that way?" He set his hands on his knees and leaned forward slightly, but he came no closer, respecting the distance she had established.
Estella stared, unsure what he could possibly mean and somehow afraid to ask.
He tilted his head at her. "Help me. Help me look for her. Let us give you what we weren't able to before. Let me..." He swallowed thickly, the cartilage in his throat shifting perceptibly. "Let me be the father I couldn't be before. It's all I think about. All I want." She could see the bright shine forming at the corners of his eyes, reflecting the firelight nearby. "You say I'm dead. But I'm not unreal. Nothing that happens in the Fade is unreal. You know that by now. If family is what you wantāif a home is what you want, then let me be that. And help me find her so that we all can be again."
How many times?
How many times had she, still a child, dreamed of this very moment? How many times had she imagined her parents swooping into the orphanage and carrying her far away from it? How many times had she wondered what her father's embrace would feel like, what her mother's smile would look like? Estella closed her eyes, squeezing out a pair of tears, and took long, steady breaths.
"If I did that... I would die." Her tone was hollow, but she kept her eyes closed. Seeing the emotion reflected so honestly on his face was too much. Too much pain.
"I thought you wouldn't mind."
A sharp breath hissed past her teeth; almost against her will she blinked, the scene around her appearing once more in her sight.
"That's it, right? The reason why you don't like it when people call you brave?" He searched her face, brows furrowed deeply. "Because bravery is risking something you value, something that matters. And your life doesn't matter to you. Isn't that why you took the Hand's challenge, all the way back then? And the other one, just yesterday."
She pulled her legs up, hugging her knees to her chest and letting her forehead drop against them. "Yes," she murmured. "And no." There was a silence. It felt almost interminable, but even so he did not break it. "That was... that was how I felt back then, I suppose. That if I could trade my life for something of value, then it was just the obvious thing to do. But..." She shook her head, the fabric of her long tunic brushing the skin of her brow.
"But I'm afraid to die now. I was afraid yesterday, when I took that challenge. It was just... it was different." She'd been terrified, knowing that she likely faced down someone more fearsome, more skilled than she'd ever be. And even though that had happened before, it had felt different, because this time, she'd wantedāso badlyāto survive it. There were things to strive for, people she wanted to live beside, and a job she wanted to survive doing, if she could.
"I can't come with you. I want toāto know you. To know her." She lifted her head, propping her chin on her knees. "I've wanted it for so long. And you're right, that I can't be sure if this time it's really home, or this time it's really a family, because I don't know what those things are supposed to feel like. But even if I never have them, what I have is..." She choked, struggling to breathe past her emotions. "What I have is worth living for."
"I see." He smiled, standing and brushing his trousers free of moss and debris. The face he wore was a melancholy one, but he didn't seem upset. "If that's so, then I'm glad. But I cannot remain. This place has allowed us to meet, just this once, but it will never happen again. If that's all right with you, then... it's all right with me as well."
Estella stood, too, hastily and awkwardly finding her feet and trying not to stagger. "I'm sorry," she said quickly, rushing because she was afraid she'd not be able to fit it in whatever time was left. "But... can I ask you for just one more thing?"
He tilted his head, a clear signal for her to continue.
"Can you... can I..." Her heart squeezed painfully. Never again, he'd said. "Will you hug me, please? It's just that I've always wondered, umā"
His arms closed around her, pulling her into his chest, and it was every bit as warm as she'd imagined it. A thousand times better in every way. Trembling, her hands found their way around his back, and she squeezed with all the might her depleted body would allow. His hand stroked through her hair once, as solid as if he'd been real.
No, that wasn't right. He was real. And here was all the proof she needed.
"Live long, da'vhenan. Give my love to your brother."
She nodded against him, unable to speak and trying to choke out the words in her heart. "Father, Iā"
But the solidity around her disappeared, and then she was falling.
Gasping awake, Estella panted, leaning back against the tree behind her and unfolding her legs. Everything was stiff, and she could feel herself crying, hot tears streaming freely down her face. Why was she...? Oh. A dream. It must have been a dream after all.
Something caught her attention from the corner of her eye; an old fire pit, by the look of it, light grey ash gathered inside a circle of stone. She hadn't noticed it when she lay down to sleep, but she'd been so exhausted that she might not have even realized it was there. Maybe if she was lucky, someone would have left flint and steel behind, perhaps a youth undertaking their own rite of passage at some point in the past.
When she didn't see any in the immediate vicinity, she reached down to try sifting through the ash itself, only to hiss and snatch her hand back. A red mark was already forming on her fingers.
The ashes were still warm.
There hadn't been much to say this timeāher companions had only been able to accompany her to the entrance and not inside, and they'd be led right back up to the city afterwards. She almost hadn't wanted Ves to have to make the walk, but she hadn't said that; it didn't take too much imagination to figure out how she would have felt in his place, and a sentiment like that wouldn't have gone over well. The Ghilan'al had informed her that the one rule of the trial was that she wasn't permitted to leave the Catacombs for the full period of time, which meant that they'd be sending someone in to retrieve her at noon three days hence. She had a small satchel with basic food and water provisions, but anything else she needed, she would have to find some way of obtaining herself.
After a brief opportunity for farewells, she was ushered into the catacombs, and the stone doors closed behind her. They would not be impossible to open if she so wished, but the point was that doing so was a forfeiture. As far as she was concerned, they may as well have sealed them shut.
The air in here was cool, even through the sleeves of the tunic that had replaced her first. There must have been some cultural significance to the color white that no one had explained outright. It was also, she noted, very dark; if not for the blue veins of lyrium overhead, she would not have been able to see so much as her hand in front of her face. As it was, the path inwards was slow goingāEstella kept her hand to the smooth wall to her left in part for guidance and in part because she couldn't walk well unassisted yet. Still... she couldn't just spend three days right next to the entrance. It was probably better to keep the temptation of the doors out of sight, if this was really as much of a trial as Harellan had said it would be.
The path into the catacombs proper sloped gradually downwards beneath her feet, the slight scuff of her boots the only sound that reached her. Even that seemed to echo far too much in the tunnel. Stone passed beneath her fingertips, surely carved with magic, for no mundane tools could wear it this smooth. Not that she knew of, anyway. Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the gloom, allowing her to at least make out the contours of the passage, the way the ceiling arched to a point over the exact line of the hallway's center.
She could see metal brackets fused into the walls, the catches for torches that no longer burned, nor indeed even sat cold. Estella wondered if they might have been removed intentionally, to make it more difficult to navigate the passage. If it was really used as a test of character, then overcoming the oppressive feeling of the darkness might well be part of it.
By the time the passage changed around her, her legs had already begun to shake with the strain of walking in her condition. Her breath quivered on every exhale, and it was cold enough down here that she could see it fog into the air in front of her, just as tremulous in sight as in sound. Estella licked her lips, finding them suddenly dry, and peered upwards.
It seemed she had come to a crossroads; eight passages yawned open in front of her, each as dark as the next. At the top of each arched frame, the lyrium had, either by accident, confluence, or design, come to resemble the same symbols as those that adorned each of the Ghilan'al. The houses, and the Evanuris with whom they were so closely connected. She almost didn't have to look to see which passage bore the tree; it was as though something inside her was magnetized towards it, the tugging of an invisible but insistent tether, or a sort of distorted gravity.
She was hesitant to trust it, to believe that it was real at allāHarellan had said that this was a place of illusion, after all, and she of all people well understood that the Fade was rarely a benevolent place. She wondered how her ancestors had made it into a thing of such wonder as it was described, when now it was so fearful and desolate.
But though she willed it away, the sense of connection did not disappear, and she pressed her lips together. It seemed as though she ought to take some path; it was hard to see what perils this one in particular could hold that the others could not. So Estella pulled in a deep breath, the chill prickling her lungs, and headed for the passage with Mythal's sigil above it.
Here, the walls changed. From the way the darkness bent and twisted, diving into hollows and receding away from crests, she could make out the elegant curls and twists of elvish writing. It was difficult to make out all the words when the script was so calligraphic, but they seemed to be blessings, prayers for benevolence and hymns to the dead. She traced one of the lines of script with her fingers as she walked, reading the words aloud in a soft voice.
"Melava inan enansal
ir su aravel tu elvaral
u na emma abelas
in elgar sa vir mana
in tu setheneran din emma na."
It took her several seconds to parse the meaning; the language seemed to be some kind of lyrical shorthand, making it difficult to follow from just knowledge of ordinary spoken elvish. But she thought it must be kind of lamentation for the loss of eternity. Perhaps a fitting sentiment, considering that these people would surely not have always needed to have crypts.
Her fingers alit on something new; a crease in the stone of the wall. With too much effort, Estella summoned a magelight to the tip of her finger, releasing the marble-sized spell to hover near her head. It only reached a few feet out in any direction, but even that was enough to understand what she'd found.
The inset in the wall could only be for an ossuary. Peering closer, she found a name inscribed. Misyl Saeris. A relative, perhaps? This would surely be their part of the catacombs. Probably the entire chamber was filled with relatives. Estella shuddered, from the cold or something else, she could not say.
Further in, the chamber opened up, its ceiling vaulting high overhead. It appeared to be in the shape of a perfect circle, all lined with more individual names. In the center was a freestanding statue, of a tall, dignified woman in armor, bearing a sword in each hand and armor inscribed with the selfsame tree. Her features were sharp, beautiful in the way that winter was beautiful: a cold sort of perfection, delicacy a mere polite veneer on elemental strength. Her posture was straight-backed, proud, though she was evidently relaxed enough that her swords were crossed point-down in front of her, held in an expert but loose grip in her hands. Loose hair cascaded about her in waves, impractically descending to her knees.
Somehow, she even overshadowed the dragon that loomed behind her, its back arched in such a way as to suggest protectiveness. The single large eye that Estella could see had a hard expression to it, reinforced by the scaly ridge of its brow. Its tail draped in front of the woman, lifted off the ground in a curl almost feline.
Actually... Estella moved closer, her attention drawn by what seemed to be an irregularity. Where the dragon's tail ended was quite close to where the woman's swords crossed, and the two things together seemed to form a small recession of sorts. Peering at the spot, Estella noticed how the stone seemed to have been worn slightly in that area, as though another object had sat against it for a very long time, or else the statue had been built with such an object in mind. If she had her guess, it would be something roughly the size of a person's head or a particularly well-grown summer melon, and about the same shape.
Curious, she made a full circuit of the statue, but no such object was anywhere to be found. Perhaps it had been removed, or perhaps she was simply imagining that any such thing had existed at all. She released a breath, almost disappointed, and went back to following the trail of names. So many went by; she could spent a whole day in here and probably not get through half of them, but the room narrowed to a hallway again at the opposite side from where she'd entered, and it seemed that the names became more recent as she continued, long generations passing from Misyl to the last.
A sudden thought struck her, and Estella tried to pick her feet up faster, barely pausing to focus on any of the names at all, intent on reaching the most recent burials. Her feet scuffed on the stone floor as she hastened, mind alive but body worn down by fatigue and the lingering toll of her injuries. Eventually the magelight winked out, as even the miniscule thread of mana necessary to sustain it slipped away from her grasp. Still, she kept moving.
At last, she reached a bank of unmarked insets, backtracking the few steps necessary to find the very last ones before that. She could feel her heart thudding hard in her chest, too much exertion and just a thin spike of dread. She knew what she'd seeāand yet somehow it still took her by surprise when she actually saw it.
Mahvir Saeris.
Her father.
Her father.
Estella's knees buckled, unable to hold her weight any longer, and she leaned forward, pressing her forehead into the stone that bore his name. She didn't know what she was supposed to think or feel, seeing this, but something rose in her throat, thick and cloying. Her fingertips curved as far as they could into the engraved characters.
His name meant tomorrow. The future. To her it sounded as though someone had named him with hope that he would be a better future. No doubt a heavy burden to carry. She couldn't help but wonder how he'd felt about that, having such a thing placed on his shoulders with just a name. The best of us, Harellan had said. She wouldn't know the first thing about what that was like, but...
Estella didn't know how long she spent there, brow resting as close to her father as she would ever be, but in time she became aware that she was starting to stiffen from the cold, and that she grew hungry and tired in the normal way, and not just the way her injuries exhausted her. Forcing a few preparatory breaths in and out of her lungs, she pulled herself to her feet, reluctantly stepping away from the ossuary and continuing down the passage. Somehow, she really didn't want to eat her dinner in the company of the dead. There was a hollow ache in her chest, and she rubbed absently at the spot through her tunic, feeling the stiffness start to abate as she warmed her muscles with motion.
Or perhaps it was the air around her that was warming up a little. In fact, that was almost surely it, because the ground was sloping upwards again. Ahead of her, she almost thought she could see light. Sunlight, not merely lyrium-light.
It was several minutes of climbing, but when the tunnel ended, it put her out in a much more natural-looking cavern, one that was partially open to the sky above. The forest's natural foliage grew here, nurtured by the sun and no doubt by the clear, shallow lake at her feet. The angle of the light illuminated floating motes of flower pollen, the late evening hues of red, gold, and purple giving the entire scene an almost soporific tranquility.
Estella's fatigue hit her like a wall, all at once, and it was all she could do to stagger to the base of the nearest tree, planting herself on some springy moss and leaning back against the trunk. Her eyelids felt heavy, and though some part of her was distantly alarmed that she should fall asleep so quickly in an unfamiliar and dangerous place, no such thought could keep her from drifting away to just that.
When she woke, it was to the familiar sound of a campfire burning, dry wood popping beneath the flames. Reluctant to stir, she pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders and rolled over, lifting some of the wool over her head to block out the light. Cor always stayed up a lot later than the rest of them, when they camped. He joked that he was getting in touch with his forgotten heritage, roughing it in the wilds, when they all knew he vastly preferred the raucous warmth of a good tavern.
As the one who was usually up the earliest, it was not a habit she particularly appreciated; even now she could hear him moving around, pots and pans banging together as he tried to assemble something to eat, most likely.
Wait.
She had a blanket. She was laying on her side. And she wasn't alone. None of those things trackedāshe'd gone to sleep by herself and sitting up, hadn't she?
"Well, well. Look who's awake. Rise and shine, princess, it's time for dinner." She didn't recognize the voice, and the jovial, smarmy tone of it did nothing to put her at ease. Cautiously, Estella sat up, well aware of the fact that she was unarmed, though she couldn't quite remember why, or where exactly she was.
"There she is. Looks like you had a nice nap. You've got, uh..." The man across the fire from her gestured vaguely to his head.
Thoughtlessly, Estella mirrored the motion, finding that her hair was everywhere, as usual when she didn't tie it before sleeping. She patted it down awkwardly, staring mutely at the campsite's other occupant.
He looked... like a younger version of Harellan. Or what she imagined a younger version of Harellan must have been like. Sitting in a crouch, he was occupied stirring something in a small pot over the fire with a tin ladle. He must have felt the weight of her eyes on him, however, because he glanced up, meeting them with spring-green ones. The firelight warmed his face to almost a honey color, throwing pale shadows from the sharp angles of it. She wouldn't say he resembled Cyrus, exactly, but she got the same kind of... feeling, looking at him, as though some intangible thing were the same between them. Maybe it was a physical resemblance too subtle to point to in the way one could point to the shape of a nose or the slope of a brow.
"Am I really that interesting?" He tilted his head to the side, a glint appearing at his ear, where a finely-crafted cuff made of golden wire lined the helix, the pattern one of leaves and branches. He arched a dark brow, nicked at the outer edge by a small scar. Not a feature Harellan shared.
"You're... you're Mahvir Saeris."
He blinked at her, then sighed. "To be honest, I was kind of hoping you'd go with 'dad,' but... yes. You called?" A sly smile curled the corner of his mouth, and then she understood why he reminded her so much of Cyrus. It changed the entire landscape of his face in just the same sort of way.
Estella opened her mouth to reply, but found that no words came out. Instead, she sat in silence for several minutes, something which didn't seem to particularly bother him. While she twisted the blanket around in her hands, he continued to cook, occasionally rummaging through his knapsack and pulling out a canister or glass vessel of something and adding it to the pot in a way that suggested an ease bordering on recklessness.
She couldn't understand how her imagination could have conjured him up. No one had ever told her anything about how he looked beyond that he was Harellan's identical twin. She wondered if the scar and the flashy jewelry were really things he'd had, or if she'd just supplied them to the dream because she already knew what Harellan looked like and felt that there had to be some difference. It made about as much sense as any other explanation, though where she'd gotten this personality from was also a mystery.
"You're not real," she said suddenly. Obviously he couldn't be. Whether she was actually still asleep or the Catacombs were conjuring all of this, she had no idea, but she'd walked past his tomb herself. He couldn't be real.
He frowned at her. "Well that's rude. Do you regularly tell people you've just met that they don't exist, or am I particularly lucky?"
"What? No, Iā" Estella pulled in a breath. "It's just... my father is dead. This is his tomb... and a lot of other people as well. You can't be real."
He scoffed softly, shaking his head, but his expression gentled to something warmer. "Of course I'm dead," he replied easily. "In a manner of speaking, anyway. But that doesn't mean I'm not real, and I'll thank you to remember it." Reaching down beside him, he picked up a thin stone bowl of some kind and spooned what looked to be a type of grain mash into it, setting it down and repeating the process with a second.
Estella tried to parse that. Maybe this was something a little bit like what had happened with Divine Justinia? She still had no idea exactly who or what that entity had been, but at the very least, she was collected... emotions, or wishes, or something connected to the actual woman. If this man was even something like that, then...
"I don't think I understand," she admitted, watching as he stood to his full height. Probably about the same as Harellan in that respect, too, though he had a different way of moving. More direct where Harellan was subtle. Like he was used to being open about what he was after and what he was about. Was it strange to read so much into a particular way of walking? She didn't think so, but maybe she was so desperate for information that she was giving meaning to things that didn't have it.
He sat next to her with a gusty exhalation, handing her one of the bowls and a spoon. They both felt solid, so Estella assumed this was a dream, as spirits were most often... less substantial in reality. The warmth seeping into her hands felt very real, though. When she lifted a spoonful to her mouth, it tasted... well, frankly bizarre. Probably something to do with all the random ingredients he'd thrown into it. It wasn't bad, exactly, just strange. These details were bothering her in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on.
"I'd explain it, but I can't say I really understand it, either," he admitted. "Telahn was always the smarter one, and much more interested in this kind of thing. He might know. You should ask him sometime." He crossed his legs underneath himself and steadily mowed through his food.
At some length, he glanced askance at her. "Well, come on then. You've got questions, and I'm your best shot at answers, so go ahead."
Estella ate at a much more subdued pace, still not entirely sure that she was eating at all. If this was merely a dream, though, it was one that felt more real than any she'd had before. Maybe it couldn't hurt to ask some things at least; she could always check if they were true with Harellan later.
"Telahn," she repeated, trying the name out. Voiceless. Clearly someone had not had such high hopes for him. "Is that... the name of your brother?" She couldn't think of anyone else it could be.
Her fatherāor whatever wore the face she imagined was hisānodded slightly. "We don't get our names until we've done what you're doing now," he explained, as though this helped to clear things up. "The ones we use as adults, that is." Reaching over, he served himself more of the mash, sighing heavily when he sat back. At some point, he'd drawn close enough that she could feel a trace of his body heat. Somehow she knew that if she touched him, he'd be just as substantial as a real person.
But then... he contended that he was one. Estella stared hard at her food before taking another slow bite.
"Isāis my mother here somewhere?" Her eyes remained fixed on her food.
He hummed, almost under his breath. "I haven't found her," he said softly, the tone quite different from his previous easy manner. "I suppose that's to be expected. I don't know exactly how long after me she was killed, or where they interred her, or if she's still herself. Even if she were... the Fade is every bit as large as the material world. I could wander for ages and never find her."
Estella sneaked a glance at him, to find that he'd stopped eating as well, and was rotating his bowl in his hands instead, keeping his thumbs on the lip of it and turning it in absent circles. "Someday." She wasn't even sure he was talking to her. Maybe he was only speaking to himself. "Someday we'll meet again."
Though subdued, the words were spoken with such conviction that she almost found herself believing them. Who was to know how these things worked, anyway? If he could be here, talking to her like this, was it really so impossible to believe that somewhere else, her mother might wander the Fade intact as well? That in all the ages yet to come, or someplace in the timeless Fade, that they might just meet again?
Next to her, he took in a sharp breath, shaking himself out of what seemed to be an apparent daze. "Anyway, enough about that for now. Why don't you tell me about you?"
So she told him. About her friends, about the Inquisition and the people she loved, and then about older things, skirting carefully around the one thing she hadn't told anyone, but sensing somehow that he knew it anyway. If he'd really come from her thoughts, he surely must have. Mahvir listened in silence, studying her face as she talked, and though she probably should have, Estella couldn't manage to feel too self-conscious about it.
"It sounds like you've had a difficult life," he said when she was through, turning slightly so as to be facing her more directly.
She grimaced, reluctant to agree. "I don't know that I would call it difficult, exactly." Compared to what some of her friends had gone throughācompared to what some of them still went throughāshe hardly believed she had any right to complain.
He shook his head. "No," he replied. "It was. I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been."
"What do you mean?" Estella felt a vague sense of alarm, as though something about those words wasn't quite right. But she couldn't put her finger on it, and her focus seemed to slip from her every time she tried, as though she were getting sleepy again and just couldn't keep a grip on her thoughts.
"You never knew me," he said softly, pushing several strands of black hair behind his ear. "But you've wanted to. How hard did you search for that feeling, Estella? How long? Aren't you still searching for it, even now?" His stare was intent, now, earnest, like he was willing her to understand something by the strength of his feelings alone. Like he needed the affirmation.
Estella parted her lips to speak, but had to close them again. So close. Too close, to those thoughts she always shied away from. The things she'd never let herself say aloud. "I don't know what you mean," she protested, shaking her head far too vigorously. Rilien had taught her how to lie, so why had she forgotten it now?
"Yes you do." The statement was absolute, the terms in no way uncertain. Nothing about his demeanor threatened her; little in it had actually changed. His hands remained folded in his lap, his posture relaxed. Even the words were spoken gently, though there was iron beneath the velvet of them. "How long have you been trying to make a home? A family? Out of whatever you could lay your hands upon. Out of poison and out of people who wouldn't ever need you the way you needed them?"
"S-stop." She shifted, moving herself a few feet further from him, but her limbs were weak, her muscles slow to respond to her commands.
"You've been given every reason to stop trying, but you haven't. And isn't that just because relinquishing that dream would be the only thing worse than continuing to fail at it? It's always there, isn't it? The longing. For what other people take for granted so easily. For what they willingly abandon." Mahvir tilted his head. "But it's always taken from you, some way or another. Everything you love. Every life you begin to build."
Estella shuddered, fighting back the tears that threatened. "Please don't say anymore. I can'tā"
But her wishes were not to be granted, not in this respect. "Even this one, right?" He slumped, an edge of grief to his posture now. "It will end, just like all the rest. Shatter fragment by fragment until there's nothing left of it. You're here to try and stop the breaking, but you're not even sure it will work."
"I said stop!" Estella curled her hands into fists, fighting away the fatigue and trying to get her fuzzy thoughts in order. Her fingernails bit into her palms, the sharp sting helping her chase away the fog in her mind. "That might beāthat might be true. But what's the use in telling me like this? You're not saying anything I don't already know." She blinked rapidly several times, unable to hold onto the indignation she'd seized for any longer than a moment.
"But what if it didn't have to be that way?" He set his hands on his knees and leaned forward slightly, but he came no closer, respecting the distance she had established.
Estella stared, unsure what he could possibly mean and somehow afraid to ask.
He tilted his head at her. "Help me. Help me look for her. Let us give you what we weren't able to before. Let me..." He swallowed thickly, the cartilage in his throat shifting perceptibly. "Let me be the father I couldn't be before. It's all I think about. All I want." She could see the bright shine forming at the corners of his eyes, reflecting the firelight nearby. "You say I'm dead. But I'm not unreal. Nothing that happens in the Fade is unreal. You know that by now. If family is what you wantāif a home is what you want, then let me be that. And help me find her so that we all can be again."
How many times?
How many times had she, still a child, dreamed of this very moment? How many times had she imagined her parents swooping into the orphanage and carrying her far away from it? How many times had she wondered what her father's embrace would feel like, what her mother's smile would look like? Estella closed her eyes, squeezing out a pair of tears, and took long, steady breaths.
"If I did that... I would die." Her tone was hollow, but she kept her eyes closed. Seeing the emotion reflected so honestly on his face was too much. Too much pain.
"I thought you wouldn't mind."
A sharp breath hissed past her teeth; almost against her will she blinked, the scene around her appearing once more in her sight.
"That's it, right? The reason why you don't like it when people call you brave?" He searched her face, brows furrowed deeply. "Because bravery is risking something you value, something that matters. And your life doesn't matter to you. Isn't that why you took the Hand's challenge, all the way back then? And the other one, just yesterday."
She pulled her legs up, hugging her knees to her chest and letting her forehead drop against them. "Yes," she murmured. "And no." There was a silence. It felt almost interminable, but even so he did not break it. "That was... that was how I felt back then, I suppose. That if I could trade my life for something of value, then it was just the obvious thing to do. But..." She shook her head, the fabric of her long tunic brushing the skin of her brow.
"But I'm afraid to die now. I was afraid yesterday, when I took that challenge. It was just... it was different." She'd been terrified, knowing that she likely faced down someone more fearsome, more skilled than she'd ever be. And even though that had happened before, it had felt different, because this time, she'd wantedāso badlyāto survive it. There were things to strive for, people she wanted to live beside, and a job she wanted to survive doing, if she could.
"I can't come with you. I want toāto know you. To know her." She lifted her head, propping her chin on her knees. "I've wanted it for so long. And you're right, that I can't be sure if this time it's really home, or this time it's really a family, because I don't know what those things are supposed to feel like. But even if I never have them, what I have is..." She choked, struggling to breathe past her emotions. "What I have is worth living for."
"I see." He smiled, standing and brushing his trousers free of moss and debris. The face he wore was a melancholy one, but he didn't seem upset. "If that's so, then I'm glad. But I cannot remain. This place has allowed us to meet, just this once, but it will never happen again. If that's all right with you, then... it's all right with me as well."
Estella stood, too, hastily and awkwardly finding her feet and trying not to stagger. "I'm sorry," she said quickly, rushing because she was afraid she'd not be able to fit it in whatever time was left. "But... can I ask you for just one more thing?"
He tilted his head, a clear signal for her to continue.
"Can you... can I..." Her heart squeezed painfully. Never again, he'd said. "Will you hug me, please? It's just that I've always wondered, umā"
His arms closed around her, pulling her into his chest, and it was every bit as warm as she'd imagined it. A thousand times better in every way. Trembling, her hands found their way around his back, and she squeezed with all the might her depleted body would allow. His hand stroked through her hair once, as solid as if he'd been real.
No, that wasn't right. He was real. And here was all the proof she needed.
"Live long, da'vhenan. Give my love to your brother."
She nodded against him, unable to speak and trying to choke out the words in her heart. "Father, Iā"
But the solidity around her disappeared, and then she was falling.
Gasping awake, Estella panted, leaning back against the tree behind her and unfolding her legs. Everything was stiff, and she could feel herself crying, hot tears streaming freely down her face. Why was she...? Oh. A dream. It must have been a dream after all.
Something caught her attention from the corner of her eye; an old fire pit, by the look of it, light grey ash gathered inside a circle of stone. She hadn't noticed it when she lay down to sleep, but she'd been so exhausted that she might not have even realized it was there. Maybe if she was lucky, someone would have left flint and steel behind, perhaps a youth undertaking their own rite of passage at some point in the past.
When she didn't see any in the immediate vicinity, she reached down to try sifting through the ash itself, only to hiss and snatch her hand back. A red mark was already forming on her fingers.
The ashes were still warm.