Chapter 16

Serenthuar made me weird about object acquisition. Not having been able to acquire things for myself could have made me jump to do so, but instead it's made every decision feel so much more intentional. Which, as always, is in Serenthuar's interests: what an ambassador is seen and known to have acquired reflects on them, and on Serenthuar, and affects negotiations. Nothing can ever really be personal, let alone without consequence.

Part of me wishes I could have learned to be that easy in the world. But part of me doesn't.

Liris wasn't going to let herself be sacrificed without her input this time, but that she not only had to do it but also sit through an interminable planning session was unbearable.

"Even I," Princess Nysia growled at Liris' obvious restlessness, "can't make things happen instantaneously. I will cover for you not being around to answer any charges other realms make, but we have to know what kind of fight to expect."

Another day, Liris would have been fascinated by the bureaucratic logistics that the combined forces of Lady Inealuwor, Princess Nysia, and the Lord of Embhullor with the weight of Special Operations behind them could bring to bear on a political undertaking.

On this day, seeing the messages come in from other Serenthuar ambassadors pretending ignorance, and their political hosts not gainsaying them, just left her hollow. Their contacts would still want Serenthuar's now-cheaper goods. The ambassadors would not risk worsening Serenthuar's position—as if being held hostage by Jadrhun wasn't as bad as things could get—and the note of disdain made it clear they blamed Liris for their precariousness. Blaming Liris for her betrayal, when they facilitated the enemy.

With too few realms cooperating and no clear consensus on which might in fact seek to hinder them, Liris' quest would have to be a stealth mission: any sizable force would face opposition in the realms they passed through on the way to Ormbtai. And Ormbtai, after years of extorting Serenthuar, had the resources to make that opposition consequential.

They didn't have time to be diverted.

Liris shoved a sheaf of notes on Thyrasel at Lady Inealuwor. "Now can I go be useful?"

The older woman looked at her archly. "Certainly." She stamped a paper full of Vhannor's handwriting and handed it to Liris. "The requisitioned supplies for your trip, skimmer included, will be downstairs. Hand this to the officer to pick them up."

Liris gritted her teeth, fighting a creeping sense of shame. None of this was Lady Inealuwor's fault, and everyone was trying to give Liris the best chance of success.

Anger was just more useful to her than tears right now.

She opened her mouth to say "thank you," saw Vhannor's name on the form as due to travel with her, and shut it before she screamed.

Her partner. Of course he wouldn't let her go alone. It wasn't like she wanted to leave him, but—it apparently wasn't enough for her to sacrifice her dreams and her freedom, he would watch her do it, might even get caught up in it? Intolerable.

Also not something she could stop, not without choosing for him.

And that she wouldn't do.

So she stormed off with no more words, and everyone let her.

Even Vhannor.

Liris donned her shimmering cloak like armor and with a look that dared Vhannor to tell her she was too bright for this mission.

He didn't.

Special Operations had spells prepared for the event that they needed to travel through realms where their treaties didn't permit them, and they passed the first gauntlet of Gate guards without a hitch.

Liris wasn't really surprised. People with sufficient power always had the ability to make rules and exceptions for themselves. Special Operations demonstrably did not have the right to flout rules to suit themselves, but did realms have the right to act stupidly when people's lives were at stake?

Probably. That ethical quandary wasn't her problem, though. Liris' problem, as Princess Nysia had put it, was "getting there and taking care of what needed to be done."

So she kept her mouth shut on all the things she wanted to scream and put one foot in front of the other toward her doom.

They mounted their skimmers and set off at speed, with Liris insisting on taking the first turn at the detection sphere to focus on something else. But it wasn't enough, and they were well into the "golden" hills of Yani—more like dead hills, but no one asked Liris, as usual—before she pulled up next to Vhannor to ask him an innocuous question about spellcraft to try to distract herself and he responded, "Really? That's all you have to say to me?"

Liris set her teeth. "What should I say?"

"I thought," Vhannor said, "you weren't saying goodbyes deliberately. Not that you..."

"Don't actually want to talk about my purpose in life as a sacrifice? Nope."

He swooped ahead of her, flying backward so he could slow her—she wouldn't plow into him at this speed, too dangerous—and she would have to look at him.

Liris canted sideways, putting on a burst of speed herself.

As Vhannor caught up at her side, now with eyes narrowed at her clear avoidance of stopping—of him—he said, "Liris, no one thinks that."

"No? I think that. Serenthuar clearly did too. Even Jadrhun. I have a mission after all, and this is it."

She'd wanted a chance. To stand on her own. To make something of her life herself, not just what Serenthuar had made of her.

Of course when the chance came it was double-edged.

Of course Liris couldn't say no. Freedom at the expense of her principles was no freedom at all.

Void it, maybe Serenthuar had raised her too well.

"I'm the only one proficient enough in both Thyrasel and spellcraft to have a chance at stopping Jadrhun, which means since he's moving now it has to be me that tries, and that means I'm a target. All Jadrhun has to do is take me out, and he's home free," Liris said flatly. "Whichever way you look at it, I'm a sacrifice. Do you have another option for me?"

"Aside from an attitude transplant?" he asked sarcastically.

"Then don't pretend I have any real choice. I know what I have to do, and I don't want to talk about it."

Vhannor's expression iced over. Liris almost regretted putting it to him in those terms—of course now he'd be worrying about what he'd made of her and not wanting to push anymore. But void everything, she was the one most hurt by this and didn't need to manage his feelings on top of hers.

"Fine," he said, in a way that made plain he did not in any way consider this fine. But Vhannor did as she asked, and returned to silence, and let her stew, and Liris was going to scream.

Thank the gods the detection sphere flared.

Liris froze, nearly tumbling off the skimmer as the feeling of being hunted, of being made into a target, made small, overwhelmed her.

"It's fine," Vhannor said, slowing beside her. "There's no one anywhere near who might wander into whatever that is, if it even is a trap."

Oh good,she thought distantly. More tests.

More tests, endless tests, until her death, and these ones might actually kill her.

"We can just keep going," Vhannor said.

Was he serious?

Void it, was she serious?

Tests were the one thing Liris could pass every time, even if it got her nowhere. But this time, for once, she didn't have to worry about pleasing the adjudicator.

Liris changed direction abruptly, heading straight for the spell.

"Liris!"

"No," she snapped. "I will not just keep going like this."

Liris crested a hill and then slid down straight toward the spell, taking it in at a glance while Vhannor stopped above.

A demon portal after all, but a pitiful one. No, the trouble was it was situated within another spell, which was clever, and what looked like the outer layers were a whole separate pattern with one purpose:

Capture anything that crossed its boundary and hold them there. Presumably assuming she would be so fixated on investigating the spell she wouldn't see it.

Savagely, Liris thought, Void that.

And then stepped deliberately inside, triggering the trap on purpose, while Vhannor had frozen, like she had finally gone so far that he wouldn't even try to help her.

Well, she'd always known she was on her own. Liris gritted her teeth and bulled ahead, she and had already traced control of the spell when silvery magic-vines erupted from the ground.

With an oath, Vhannor finally decided he couldn't just watch and flung beautifully aimed bolts of magic at one vine, knocking it away from her, and another, more disc-shaped, sliced off at the root. It grew back, but Vhannor kept it from advancing.

Liris moved quickly, surely, her voice dripping disdain with every word of dispelling.

Jadrhun thought he could terrorize her? She would end him.

The spell was simple, its notable power coming from the Thyrasel line. No surprise there: Jadrhun had evidently abandoned pretenses. Liris dispelled it with no trouble, but the vines that it had already manifested didn't vanish, reforming as Vhannor cut them even though they no longer multiplied.

That was fine.

Liris had had a lot of time to think about how she'd gone wrong in Thous facing the mercenaries. All the things she could have done. Of course, it wasn't the same as reacting in the moment and inventing something new, but the problem with trying to contain her, as the Serenthuar elders had found, was that she learned.

Liris flipped to a spell that would radiate fire outward from her in all directions and designated the distance at which it would fizzle out. A stroke of her sparkly pen, and a wall of flame rushed from her in a sphere—underground, above, as wide as the circumference of the vine spell.

The vines vaporized.

Vhannor jerked back away from the surging wall of fire only for it to vanish abruptly before it would have reached him.

As long as she was at it, Liris stepped into the demon portal spell.

This time, she let herself feel.

She stood there, reveling in the chaotic emotions, in feeling something more than despair and helplessness.

Then Vhannor was shouting at her, and with a pang that blossomed quickly inside the spell Liris knew that even if she wouldn't let Jadrhun hurt her feelings, Vhannor still could. And since that wasn't something she wanted to dwell on, she quickly finished up and stepped out, feeling cleansed, and newly empowered, and—

"Are you out of your mind," Vhannor snarled at her.

Liris raised her eyebrows. "You were the one who wanted me to stop and process earlier."

"Not inside a spell!"

"Oh, please. If I'd been in any danger there, you could have gotten me out if you wanted to."

This time his eyes narrowed. "And what is that supposed to mean? Oh, could you be referring to how you gave me no warning before tripping the spell on purpose?"

"What are you mad about? You're the one who told me you could keep up—"

"So you didn't even ask for help?"

"—and you did, if slower than usual."

"I see," Vhannor said. "So I'm to be blamed for your lack of care."

"My—"

"If you plan to take your time disarming a spell," Vhannor interrupted her icily, "consider it might be courteous to inform your partner you are not in distress first."

Liris was about to shoot back that she'd plainly not been, but given her mood on the way out she could see, in retrospect, that might not have been apparent.

"Fair enough," she said, wishing that moment of catharsis could have lasted longer. "Shall we continue on, then?"

Vhannor glared at her. "You mean now that Jadrhun knows for certain that we're coming? Yes, well played."

"He was always going to know I was coming," Liris pointed out. "That's why this trap is here. That's why we were already expecting traps to be here."

It's why the spell had used Thyrasel. A person couldn't enter a spell on accident, but that presence would compel Liris to stop and check them, to make sure to deal with any that couldn't wait for the University of Embhullor's linguists.

All to slow her down.

All to stop her.

She would show him.

"So you're just going to lie down and die?" Vhannor demanded. "Make it easy for him?"

"What? Of course not. This way I can practice." Turning his traps into her training, using his own effort to create his undoing at Liris' hand. "I can get more familiar with the patterns Jadrhun favors so I'll be able to deal with his spells faster. Which will give him fewer chances of murdering me."

Now Liris was catching up to the argument they were actually having.

Vhannor hadn't been slow after all. He'd thought she was trying to die, that she wanted to sacrifice herself.

Liris looked directly at him, angry he could have thought so little of her resolve even for an instant.

"I have a secret," she told him. "I've never believed in sacrificing myself."

In the face of her anger, he breathed in, closed his eyes, and let it out. "I think it goes somewhat further than that," Vhannor said, taking a step forward. "I think you despise the entire concept with every fiber of your being."

Subsuming everything that made a person unique and free for some "greater good," as if rejecting individuality could improve a whole?

Yeah, okay, she absolutely hated everything about that.

Liris nodded tightly. "You're not wrong. So that's not what I'm going to do."

Vhannor nodded back, lifting a hand toward her face. "And I'll help you."

She caught his wrist. "Will you?" she challenged. "Or will you be so worried I might feel trapped that you'll refuse to do anything?"

He sucked in a breath. "Is that what you think I've been doing?"

"Am I wrong?" she challenged.

"Yes." Vhannor took one last step in, so they were face to face, and brought his other hand up to clasp the one holding his. His lavender gaze blazed gold. "I'm not going to waste my energy on someone who won't try to stay."

Oh. This was yet another argument.

Or maybe it had been the same one all along.

It was all about how they would live, could live, together.

"So as long as I want to stay," Liris said slowly, "and you finally believe that I mean it—"

"Then I will never let you go," Vhannor said. And then added, "Up to and including the dispelling we're flying toward."

"What?" She shook their hands free. "Vhann, you can't interfere—"

"Of course not, nor would I try to stop you. You don't need that from me. But you can't keep me from supporting you." This time she let him take her face in his hands, transfixed by his intensity focused on her, his gaze, his voice. "You may have to dispel alone, but I will shield you. I will make sure there is a world still here to come back to when you're done. As long as you want to."

Liris whispered, "If you question me on that one more time—"

He didn't.

He kissed her instead.

Liris decided that grabbing him and holding on until made to let go was sufficiently expressive of her thoughts on the matter.

The advantage of their route was not its physical proximity to Ormbtai, but that it took them through more Gates that wouldn't hinder them. They'd get as close as they could before the inevitable difficulties arose.

They flew for a while longer, and this time Liris' thoughts weren't... calm, exactly, but even her anxiety seemed tired. The endless rolling hills of this part of Yani were almost meditative. They passed through a Gate to the tropical end of Sonang, which had so many bugs the amount of magic it took to make bearable made it uninhabitable, and squeezed through a barely defended Gate on the other side. An obfuscation spell was enough to pass through to the abandoned ruins on the other side, only visited in dry seasons, which this was decidedly not. That made it an ideal place to rest before continuing on, since given the day they'd had, they were going to have to rest sometime or else they'd be too tired to square off against Jadrhun. And the hateful power structure in Ormbtai.

With an adapted protection spell, the downpour in Tinardu didn't present as much unpleasantness. Still, since the former monastery had crumbled in the Sundering, there was a distinct lack of roofs. It was more efficient to maintain a smaller protective sphere for a longer period.

Liris huddled next to Vhannor, fully aware that was not why they'd decided they didn't need much space for their camp.

His lips quirked. "Comfortable?"

"I wouldn't say no to warmer surroundings," she murmured.

Vhannor huffed out a laugh, then tugged her in front of him until she was surrounded by his warmth, and both of them could gaze out into the rain, alone in their own world.

And it didn't feel confining. She suspected with anyone else this would, but at some point Liris had stopped wondering whether Vhannor was testing her and trusted him implicitly not to hold her back if she needed to go.

She was outside, but with protection she chose. It was hard to wrap her mind around how much her life had changed in the space of weeks.

"What are you thinking about?" Vhannor murmured against her ear.

Liris shivered. He solicitously tightened his arms around her.

"I'm not actually used to warmer surroundings, exactly," she said. "I lived in a desert, but most of my time was spent in underground rooms climate-controlled to preserve paper records. I didn't go outside much."

"Not even to cultivate an appreciation of Serenthuar?" Vhannor asked. "As much as you love exploring, I'm sure you must have made that argument."

"No." Liris leaned back into his chest, contemplating where to begin, the rain a strange lullaby. "When I was a child, I made a serious mistake. Unforgivable, it turned out, but shortly afterward, the elders took me on a field trip outside. I saw Serenthuar's people at work in all the fields you'd expect. It was like they were putting on a show just for me, to show how proud I should be of Serenthuar by showing me how proud all the people of Serenthuar were in their work, but they also made a point of drawing my attention just how hard that work, and life, is for the average person in Serenthuar."

Vhannor ran his hands up and down Liris' arms, warming them. Warming her.

And somehow it was easy to continue, "On the way back, they asked me what I'd learned. Of course by then I knew I was in trouble, and I told them I understood how hard everyone in Serenthuar works and that I'd make sure to work just as hard to serve them."

"They were trying to scare you into submission by threatening you with a life of menial labor?" His breath was warm against her ear, but the rumble of his voice, both incredulous and outraged, was even better.

"More like work that would bore me. Plenty of it takes a great deal of skill, but it's also very... repetitive." Difficult to explain the sort of existential dread that filled her at the prospect of doing the same thing every day for the rest of her life, with no challenge to her mind. Plenty of people in the world managed, and yet—

"Ah," Vhannor said. "Now I see."

By his tone, Liris thought he did.

But she wasn't finished. "I think that's what they meant to do, but then I wondered why they'd kept it at a field trip rather than making me work with people, to really see what it was like, or abandoning me at a workshop and making me think I really was done so I'd be desperate."

His arms tightened around her.

"But then I realized what they must have known I would, which is that it wouldn't work. I was already too valuable—I'd outstripped the few other candidates, as well as comparable development of my predecessors. That's why they were loath to lose me at all and hadn't just culled me from training already, like they would have anybody else who thought they should change. Or, really, in retrospect, made things so unpleasant the candidates culled themselves, which I was too stubborn or oblivious to realize was a sign. I believed it was a test that I would pass, and then when I'd proven myself—and since I knew I wouldn't give up, for years I really thought that was a ‘when' and not an ‘if'—for me, there would be an end. Almost nobody in Serenthuar ever got the chance I did to try, so what I actually took from that day was that I had to make the most of mine."

"But then there wasn't an end for you," Vhannor rumbled.

But he kissed her temple, taking the sting out of the reminder.

Liris sighed. "Yes. And eventually I cracked and decided what I wanted for myself was more valuable than serving Serenthuar."

"Or," he growled, "you decided to be true to serving Serenthuar even when they had strayed in their pride."

Vhannor's hands had ghosted up to her shoulders by that point, and he muttered a soft curse behind her at how tense they were.

"You are not going into battle like this," he growled.

Liris scoffed. "Oh, like you're any less rigid?"

The only reason she didn't wiggle in his lap to make the point was because Vhannor dug his thumbs into the knots in her shoulders. Liris hissed.

"I'm flexible when I need to be," he told her.

Like he had been with her.

Mostly.

Vhannor hit another knot. "Your turn next, then."

It was a partnerly thing to do, after all. Making sure they were in good shape for battle.

She also wasn't going to miss a chance to get her hands all over him, and if he was going to spend his turn keeping it professional, that was his loss.

"You don't believe me," Vhannor noted. "About serving Serenthuar."

Is that why he thought she was coiled now? Well, maybe it was part of it.

"I'd like to believe that," Liris said. "It seems too convenient. I did always wonder about the people putting on a show for me that day, though."

He stayed quiet, listening but not pushing, while his hands continued working her muscles.

Liris slowly let go.

"Maybe they really were proud of their work and of Serenthuar. But maybe, like me, they'd learned to say the right thing because they knew it could be worse, so I could never ask."

Vhannor's hands made their way up to her neck, and as her muscles turned liquid under his ministrations, heat built inside her further down.

Liris swallowed, holding the thread of her point. "I'd have loved to learn more first-hand, and to go out more. But knowing that every interaction would probably be feigned, and that my selfish request would force more work on them, force them to have to perform for me the way I performed for the elders—I couldn't do it."

Vhannor rested his chin on her head and offered, "I can relate to the isolation, in a way. I've never formed real connections easily—the power of my position prevents casualness."

His thumbs worked lower, and lower, and Liris warmed with every touch.

"I've chosen to throw my inherited power toward making Special Operations more sustainable, but that doesn't make it easier for anyone to talk to me like... a person, rather than a figure. It's not at all the same, of course—I had responsibilities, but I had choice, and you didn't—"

As much as she was enjoying this, Liris wasn't willing to let him go further down this path, turning in his arms to interrupt him with a wry look. "Even I don't feel the need to compete at who has had the harder life."

Vhannor let out a breath and said dryly, "And I don't think either of us needs to compete at who is more driven to make the most of what they've been given."

Hmph.

Liris settled back in his arms, softer now.

And although she hadn't gotten to work on him yet, the palpable feeling of her relaxation had made his arms around her softer, too.

Somehow he could make even huddling in the cold rain into a warm place she wanted to stay.

"I don't want to lose that, either," Liris said, "so perhaps we can rely on each other to point out when the other needs to take a nap."

Vhannor's breath hitched for a moment before he said, "Yes."

Then he handed Liris a water bottle.

Once she'd finished snickering and drinking, she said, "I guess my point is, I would love to be able to someday take for granted the feeling of not being trapped, of not feeling like the doors could shut on me at any moment. I don't want to always be so afraid of being trapped I trap myself in that cycle."

"How did you break out of it today?" Vhannor asked. He was touching her again, but more lazily, not so much exploring as just wanting to touch her. Liris decided she was fine with that course, at least for now, and relaxed into him. "You went from a deep certainty that your only option was sacrifice to throwing the idea of sacrifice in your enemies' faces... abruptly."

"I've worked too hard to throw my life away because it's become inconvenient to someone else," Liris said. "What a waste. I refuse with everything that I am. Jadrhun's not hunting me anymore. I'm hunting him."

His hands stilled. "Liris."

"I'm only sort of kidding," she said. "I'm changing the pattern. It's not just that I'm the only one who can stop him. It's that I can stop him."

"Framing matters," Vhannor murmured, gathering her close again. "And you know it's true because Jadrhun believes it."

"Right. It makes me wonder if it really is just knowledge of Thyrasel, now that we figured out the geographical connection. I've been wracking my brain, trying to think of what else I might have said that's made him so convinced I'm a threat worth neutralizing. I can't think of anything specific in Thyrasel itself, beyond its inherent complexity for facilitating spell power."

"But you knew that even before you knew more than basics about spellcraft, didn't you?" Vhannor asked. "Perhaps that was enough."

Liris shifted so she could look up at him. "How do you mean?"

Vhannor accommodated her without a word, one arm taking her weight so she could lean on him as she sat sideways in his arms. His other hand was free, though, and she wondered what he would do with it.

Then he answered, "Of all the subjects you could have been busying yourself studying while you were trapped in Serenthuar—"

"Okay, before you go too far with that thought, there weren't so many challenges I could give myself that were both new adventures no one had managed before and that were also within my reach. A dead undeciphered language was a fairly obvious choice, with those parameters in mind."

He wasn't going to do anything with that hand, apparently. Maybe he didn't want to distract her from an important conversation.

Liris had no such compunctions, and also great faith in her ability to focus. She wrapped her arms behind his neck and threaded her hands through his hair.

Had she ever touched his hair before? A revelation.

Vhannor's voice came out much lower. "You make my point. You chose to attempt something no one else would, and then you succeeded. Then you saw the shape of the situation around you for what it was, a trap with no escape, and nevertheless found one and did something with it. You see possibilities where others only see walls, and you act on them. If I had to guess, it's not a specific piece of knowledge Jadrhun is worried about at this point, but that he can't predict what you'll see. He claims he can't be stopped, but what if he can?"

Ugh, mood killer. Liris let her arms drop and banged her head against his chest maybe slightly too hard, as the never-ending rain continued to pound around them. "Well, no pressure."

Vhannor bent down to kiss her cheek. She thought that was supposed to be reassuring rather than inflaming. "You love pressure."

She glared up at him. "I love it a lot better when I'm confident I know what I'm doing."

He was silent for a minute, contemplating that. "Aside from learning everything I know from a lifetime of spellcraft in a few days' time—" Liris snorted "—is there anything more particular you feel unconfident on?"

"Changing spells," she answered immediately. "Or creating them."

"Ah."

"Yes, ah. I'm aware how easy it is to mess up, and how capable I am of doing so catastrophically, and it's a safe bet Jadrhun's plan involves the fundamental ley magic that holds the Sundered Realms together, so. Yeah, you could say I have a few concerns."

"You're going to be dispelling, though," Vhannor pointed out. "Not creating a ley spell yourself." Then he paused. "That's not helpful, is it? You of all people won't find a limitation reassuring."

Something in her chest eased. He did understand.

Thank the gods for this man who didn't think supporting her meant stopping her.

Liris blew out her breath in a gust. "No."

"Hmm. Cozy as this is, would you mind turning the rest of the way around?"

Liris almost smiled to herself, already scooting.

As much as she trusted him at her back, she would never hesitate to face him head on.

He drew his knees in, so Liris sat across from him cross-legged before he took her hands.

"I won't lie to you and say you're wrong to be worried on that front," Vhannor said. "It is dangerous, but second-guessing yourself at the wrong time is worse. But I'm here with you, and even at this speed we have a few days. So tell me what we can do in that time to make you feel surer you won't explode the world by mistake."

Surer, not sure. Ha. "You don't have ideas?"

"Of course I do."

"Then I want to hear yours."

He smiled a little and shook his head. "No. You're the one who's going to be on the spot, and you know yourself best. Let me rephrase: What will help you feel calmer going in?"

Liris took a breath, closed her eyes. Tilted her head back, and opened them, gazing not at the broken walls around her, but up to the dark sky, whose rain couldn't reach her here.

"Feeling in control," she murmured. "Which means being able to control more. Right now I'm worried I'm missing some whole crucial field of knowledge, you know? And I know there's no substitute for experience, but not knowing what Jadrhun might throw at me and not knowing what I can do about it—"

"You've spent your life arming yourself with knowledge in preparation for deploying it," Vhannor agreed. "So that's what we'll do." He pulled out his spell pad. "What potential opposition from Jadrhun do you want to start with? Fighting demons, maybe? Or other casters?"

Right now?Liris blinked, then began to smile as she reached for her pen. "Not where I thought the evening was headed a little while ago, but I probably should have expected this. Us being us. How about—can I do multiple things at once? Dispel and spell?"

"Depends on the spell," Vhannor said, looking at her quizzically. "Where did you think—"

His eyes were already starting to widen in dawning realization, but Liris couldn't resist: "Kissing, Vhann."

There wasn't really enough light to tell, but she was absolutely sure he was blushing. Probably mortified they were both such nerds that it either hadn't occurred to him or he'd gotten distracted with talk of spellcraft.

Liris continued teasing him, which was perfectly justified and really counted as looking out for him—he'd just approved of that, after all. "Alone in our own bubble, where no one can disturb us... Come on, Vhann, even I'm not that sheltered—"

Vhannor didn't have far to go to kiss her swiftly, cutting her off.

Liris maneuvered to her knees so she could get in closer, hands sliding up his body as he wrapped his arms around her.

When they broke for air, Vhannor rumbled in a low voice that made her shiver against him, "Lady's choice."

"If you expect me to choose between kisses and magic, I refuse," Liris told him.

Vhannor smiled, and Liris did not melt against him but possibly only because he was holding her up. "Encouraging on all counts," he murmured. "Let me rephrase: Which would you like to focus on first?"

Liris sighed, stole one more kiss—well, at that length maybe it didn't count as stealing, but she stopped, didn't she?—and said, "Magic. But I expect to have more time for kisses later."

Vhannor kissed her one more time anyway, and she could feel the heat of him. "Let's make sure of it," he said, and it sounded like a vow.

They worked, and slept, and flew—and kissed—and Liris learned. It was an exercise not just in focus, but in endurance thereof, and that her life had thoroughly prepared her for.

She practiced dispelling complicated spells alone. She practiced changing spells, though only simple ones—anything too complicated she'd have to avoid, because not even Vhannor would be able to save her. There wasn't much more known about Gates or ley magic, but she could practice combat strategies, to have spells ready to fight with for any situation. She learned as many principles of spell patterns as Vhannor could teach her in the time they had, to maximize the chance she'd recognize enough to figure out any spell on command without assistance.

When they stopped in Theiraos' rocky terrain to eat, Vhannor said, "I can see you thinking. You're supposed to be resting now so you can think later."

"I'm bad at not thinking," Liris admitted. "With as many patterns as we've looked at, I can't help wondering how Jadrhun is actually planning on doing this. Even with the power from detonating the Gate, how does he think he's going to communicate to the universe to un-break itself? Or put itself back together?"

"That's one reason we've always known it can't work," Vhannor said. "Spells are... like written instructions, but the theory is that people—or rather, the sapient beings casting the spells—are the vessels through which magic can interpret instructions. If Jadrhun doesn't know how to heal the realms, he can't direct the magic to do so."

"Jadrhun's not stupid, though, and he excelled at the same spellcasting college you did, so he must know that," Liris pointed out. "Which means he thinks he does know how to direct the magic. Like he's come up with some new way spells don't have to be written at all, or—"

"Spells don't have to be written."

Liris stared. "See, this is the sort of basic theory I am always missing."

Vhannor looked stricken, like he'd realized this had probably just shattered the confidence he'd been trying to build in her.

Liris waved him off, her mind too busy snagging on this new idea to worry about that. "It's fine, I'm learning, I just... feel like this is the sort of fundamental question Jadrhun's done something with. Keep talking, please?"

"You do know this, though," Vhannor said, frowning. "You've seen dancing layers in a spell, or floral arrangement—"

"Notated."

"And you dispel them by performing them," he pointed out.

Okay, fair point.

"Writing isn't inherently more magical than any other art. Written spells are just more reliable, reproducible in effect. You also have a greater ability to specify, which is the main key—other forms are more difficult to make complex enough for sufficient power."

"Like circles," Liris mused. "Not the only shape, but consistently effective. Why are they the shape that works best for magic, anyway?"

"That, I don't know," Vhannor admitted. "I'm not sure anyone does."

Liris smiled slightly. "You should know better than to say something like that to me."

She was joking, partly, but couldn't help wondering—

What if Jadrhun did?

Vhannor didn't smile as she'd expected him to, though, because the spell detection sphere around her flared.

A moment later, his spell detection sphere flared, too.

On the opposite side.

Liris muttered even as she whipped her spell pad out to gather their critical supplies as they'd practiced, "Please tell me spoken spells aren't a thing, and I didn't just summon a circle surrounding us."

"They are, but you didn't. Void take it!" Another detection sphere flared all around him. "We are surrounded, though."

"Plan?"

"Wait," Vhannor said grimly, even as he cast a protective sphere around them.

Liris almost breathed easier at that as she finished with the supplies, but then she caught movement out of the corner of her eye; swung around. "Camouflaged person approaching—uh, make that people. Why are we waiting?"

"Because if I'm right, I know who these people are, and diplomacy will be more effective than fighting," Vhannor said.

Liris flipped to her fire-radiating-outward spell anyway. People were closing in on them now from all sides, at least a dozen casters among them.

"Vhann, these don't look like Theiraosian government uniforms."

"I know."

She didn't think he'd wait for mercenaries, not when others they'd met had collaborated with Jadrhun. "Are these The People's Will?" Liris asked quietly.

Not quietly enough. "Yes," a woman with a riot of curls answered, stepping forward as twelve sets of caster pairs held position around them, pens poised.

Theiraosian rebels. Under other circumstances Liris would have been impressed by her air of competence.

Today she thought, It's not a trap if I'm choosing to be here, and tried to make herself believe it.

"Chaeheen," Vhannor greeted her.

"Vhannor."

Oh good, they were on first-name terms. Liris liked this less and less. If Chaeheen knew Vhannor that well, she'd been looking for him on purpose, and she knew what he could do.

"It's been a while," Vhannor said. "I'd love to catch up, but at present my partner and I are in a bit of a hurry."

"Yes, I noticed that," Chaeheen said, eyes flicking to Liris and over her cloak. "In theory I could let you continue on, but if you're calling her partner, I don't believe you'll leave her behind."

"You're taking orders from Jadrhun?" Vhannor growled. "You realize he's working with demons?"

"He can work with whomever he pleases if he can back up his promises."

"Why in the world would you of all people believe he can?"

"Because I'm not stupid, and I demanded he pay in advance," Chaeheen said bluntly. "Jadrhun showed us a Gate in familiar territory I had no idea existed. If he knows how to use ley magic to find Gates, I can imagine what else he can do." Her voice softened. "I know you're trying to help. But Theiraos needs this. Everywhere needs this. I won't let you stop him."

"Wait."

Chaeheen's eyebrows raised at the order before she realized Vhannor had put a hand on Liris' arm.

"For what, exactly?" Liris asked.

"Chaeheen studied at Embhullor too," Vhannor said, and nodded in the direction of some of their surrounders. "So have several other casters here. Theiraosian rebels have never lacked for spellcraft talent."

Liris lifted her brows in inquiry, not breaking her line of sight on Chaeheen, who was frowning.

"Yes, you and I might still win," Vhannor said, which caused Chaeheen to do a double take. "But not without cost, Liris."

Cost they couldn't afford if they were going to be in any condition to face whatever Jadrhun had planned.

"Being in good shape doesn't help us if we don't get there," Liris said.

"I know," Vhannor said. "Will you trust me?"

That should have made everything harder. She'd been betrayed before—recently even—and it had left a deep mark.

To her surprise, though, trusting Vhannor made everything simple.

She lifted her pen off the pad.

Vhannor stepped in front of Liris, blocking her gaze of Chaeheen, and kissed her.

"We'll make it," he vowed before dispelling the protection sphere.

Chaeheen gaped for a moment before motioning two of her teams forward to restrain them.

"I know." Liris half-smiled at Vhannor. "No pressure, right?"