Without thinking, his eyes scanned the letter. However, he needn’t have bothered to read, for he had the words committed to heart. The letter was addressed to him, and to Travis.
I hope you both can forgive me, but even if you cannot, I know what I do is right. I think, in time, you will agree. It does not matter. By the time you read this, I will be gone. There is no point in trying to search for me. I amT’gol . You will not be able to follow my trail, for I will leave none.
For many years I have known it was my fate to bear a child by the one who will raise Morindu the Dark from the sands that bury it. As so often happens, my fate has come to pass, but not in the way I imagined. I will indeed bear a child by you, Travis Wilder, but notto you. And nor to you, Beltan of Calavan, though you are the one who made her with me. Instead, I choose to be selfish and take her for my own.
Why? I am not certain. The cards are not yet clear. But I have spoken to my al-Mama, and one thing is certain: Fate moves in a spiral about my daughter. She is at the center of something important. Or perhaps something terrible. What it is, I cannot say, but I intend to find out. And if it is dangerous, I will protect her from it. Even if it means keeping her from her father. From both her fathers.
Again, I beg your forgiveness. I have taken our child away from you both. In return, I give to you something I hope you will find equally precious: I give you one another. Do not squander this gift, for what I have taken from you cannot be replaced. You must love one another. For me. For us. Just as I must do this thing for our daughter.
May Fate guide us all.
—Vani
That was it. There was no more explanation, no chance of stopping her. She was simply gone.
What she meant when she said lines of fate swirled around her—around their—daughter, they didn’t know, and nor had Vani and Sareth’s al-Mama offered more explanation. The old woman simply cackled and said that each had their own fate to worry about. “Except for you, A’narai,” she had added, pointing a withered finger at Travis.
A’narai.The word meant Fateless. Which made no sense to Beltan, because the Mournish seemed to think Travis was the one destined to find the lost city of their ancestors one day.
“I think fate is nothing more than what you make it,” Grace had told Travis and Beltan that night, after a celebratory feast in the keep’s hall—one of a dozen such feasts King Kel had arranged since their victory over the Pale King. “The only way to have no fate is to never really make a choice.”
Maybe she hadn’t been trying to tell them what to do. Or maybe she had, for she had left something in Travis’s hand when she went: half of a silver coin. Either way, that night they made a choice.
“I don’t think Eldh needs me anymore,” Travis had said as they stood atop the keep’s battlements.
Beltan wasn’t so certain that was true, but there was one thing he did know. “ Ineed you, Travis Wilder.”
Travis gazed at the silver coin on his palm. It was whole now, a rune marking each side. One for Eldh, and one for Earth. He looked up, his gray eyes the same color as the coin in the starlight. “Come with me.”
So much had happened in the time they had known each other—so much pain, sorrow, and confusion. All of that vanished in an instant, like ashes tossed on the wind.
“Haven’t you figured it out by now?” Beltan said, laughing. “I’m always with you.”
Travis gripped the coin, and they embraced as a blue nimbus of light surrounded them. And that was how they came to Earth.
Beltan opened a desk drawer and placed the letter gently inside. Then he headed to the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes behind him. Hot showers were a luxury he did not know how he had ever survived without. How could he ever go back to bathing in a tub of lukewarm water or, worse yet, diving into a cold stream?
I knew this world would make you soft, he thought as he stepped under the water and grabbed the bar of soap. The sharp, clean scent of lavender rose on the steam. Ah, good—Travis had finally gone to The Body Shop as Beltan had been pestering him to.
He washed away the day’s layer of car exhaust and sweat, then stepped out of the shower. Living on Earth hadn’t made him quite as soft as he had feared. Once it was clear he would not join the army, he had worried he would go all to flab like many warriors who traded their swords for cups. Then he had discovered a place down the street called a gym.
At first he had taken the various mechanical contraptions inside for torture devices. Then a young man with large muscles had shown Beltan how to use them. He went to the gym often now, and he was happy to note that his ale belly was a bare wisp of its former self.
He toweled off, then scraped his cheeks with a straight razor, preferring the blade to the buzzing device Travis had bought him one Midwinter’s Eve, leaving a patch of gold on his chin and a line above his mouth. His white-blond hair seemed determined to keep falling out, but a woman at a shop next to the gym had cut it short, and had given him a bottle of something called mousse. (That was another one of those confusing words.) The mousse made his hair stick up as if he had just gotten out of bed, but that seemed to be the fashion of this world. Besides, Travis said he liked it, and that was all that counted.
He picked up his discarded clothes on the way to the bedroom, traded them for fresh jeans and a T-shirt, and appeared in the kitchen just in time to see Travis set dinner on the table.
“It smells good,” Beltan said. “What is it?”
“What do you think it is?” Travis asked with a pointed look.
Beltan eyed the full bowls. “It looks like stew.”
“Then let’s call it that.”
Travis said he was a poor cook, but Beltan thought everything he made was excellent. Then again, Beltan thought any food that didn’t bite back was good, so maybe Travis had a point. Beltan ate three helpings, but he noticed Travis hardly touched his own food. He never seemed to eat much these days, but Beltan tried not to worry about it.
“I don’t think I need food like I used to,” Travis had said once, and maybe it was true. Even without going to the gym, he looked healthy. He was leaner than when they first met, but well-knit and strong.
All the same, sometimes Beltan did worry. A few times, after they had made love, Travis’s skin had been so hot Beltan could hardly touch him, and he had seemed to shine in the dark with a gold radiance. While Beltan didn’t like to admit it, those times made him think of the Necromancer Dakarreth, whose naked body in the baths beneath Spardis had been sleek and beautiful, gold and steaming.
The blood of the south runs in his veins now, Beltan, just as it did in the Necromancer’s.
Beltan didn’t know what it meant—only that both he and Travis had been changed by blood. And maybe that was all right. Because, no matter what had been taken from them, if they could still love one another, then they had everything.
“I’ll get the dishes,” Beltan said.
“No,” Travis said with mock sternness, “you’re going to go watch TV while I clean up. Remember, I’m unemployed at the moment, and you’re the hard worker who’s bringing home the bacon.”
Beltan frowned. “Was I supposed to stop at the butcher and get salt pork on the way home?”
Travis laughed, and it was a good sight to see. The bookstore where he had worked for the last year had closed, and he hadn’t found a new job yet. That was probably why he had been reading Vani’s letter. He had been home by himself all day, and sadness usually waited until people were alone to creep in and touch them. However, the mirth in his eyes seemed genuine.