Maertyn brought Anryn to his warm little room on the ground floor. After hauling the prince nearly a mile uphill along the slippery rocks back to the governor`s house, he was too tired to go all the way up the stairs to Anryn`s room on the second floor.

　　Besides which, all the liquor he`d acquired at Java was in his room. Maertyn was still amazed that there was such a place where you could ask someone to bring you bottles of whiskey in bed. They even brought it to him on trays with vases of flowers for decoration. Maertyn thought that when Anryn woke up, she might need a drink.

　　If she ever wakes up, he thought.

　　The prince`s breathing was shallow and ragged. Her body was limp and cold in Maertyn`s arms. The waters of Java wounded Anryn deep inside, somewhere that Maertyn couldn`t reach to Weave whole for her. She would have to do that on her own.

　　Maertyn hoisted Anryn up higher in his arms so that he would not knock over the bottles on trays scattered throughout his room. He stepped around them and managed to dump Anryn onto the bed without upsetting any. To reward himself, Maertyn picked up one of the half empty ones, and climbed in beside her to wait.

　　He drank, and he brooded.

　　Java was too much like Nynomath. The stone buildings with the rounded tops looked exactly like the Great Dome, where he`d been enslaved. Even the water outside brought back memories of the Sight pools where mages knelt and schemed over what they Saw in that poisoned water. Some of these memories were Maertyn`s own, from the time he`d spent under the Dome. The rest came from the mages he`d murdered, who longed to touch the water in those pools again.

　　Ghosts weren`t real. The Church said so, the mages said so. Everyone alive knew they were just parts of fairy stories meant to frighten children and distract bored wives. Yet Maertyn knew the voices in his head weren`t just the memories of his time in Nynomath. There was something more to them. Something heavier that pushed at him now, without him even needing to reach for it.

　　All around him in Java, there was light. The place was what mages called a Source. A rare place from which a mage might draw power beyond their own, and See far into the future or the past. A holy place, made twice sacred by the legends that Ammarish priests wove into Java when they painted its walls and cleaned debris from its springs.

　　The water that ran in the pools and through the pipes of the house glowed with that vitality. The power hidden in the water pulsed throughout Java, begging for a mage to call it forth or a witch to ignite it. Maertyn closed his eyes, and it was as if he could hear the murdered mages whispering the spells they wanted to say over the water.

　　His star is dark& Destined to bring misery and woe to all who know him.

　　Maertyn glanced at the ground beside the bed. Beneath the rug there was a smear of soot from what had been the Winze doll he found in the room. He`d been drunk when he burned it, but not so drunk that he forgot to hide the stain.

　　He picked up another bottle from a tray on the floor, and drank the mages` voices away. All through the day and well into the night, he drank. Every so often, he looked at Anryn`s head pressed against the pillow beside him to make sure she still breathed.

　　In the small hours of the morning, she stirred and rolled toward Maertyn. Saw him with a bottle in his hands.

　　"What is that?" she asked, her voice hoarse from the water she`d choked on.

　　"I think gin?" Maertyn said, taking another swig from the bottle to remember its flavor—juniper and salt. "Professor Lawson said that it keeps away fevers, but I do not believe him."

　　"That`s not the Four Wolves I gave to you," the prince complained, rubbing her face.

　　"I told you, I am saving that for your wedding," Maertyn said.

　　"My wedding," Anryn echoed. Her eyes were all the way open now, and she stared at the ceiling. Maertyn could see that she was thinking. In a way, trying to weave herself back together.

　　"This isn`t my room," the prince said.

　　"This one they gave to me," Maertyn said. "They said it was for priests."

　　"Why would you bring me back here? My room is bigger," Anryn demanded, sitting up. He lifted the covers and then pulled them back over his legs. "Where is the robe that I was wearing?"

　　"You took it off in the spring. Do not get mad at me. You want a drink?" Maertyn asked. He wiped the head of the bottle with his sleeve and tried to hand it to her.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

　　"Maertyn, I am not drinking from a shared bottle like a peasant in an alleyway&" Anryn stopped and looked all around the room, her eyes going wide. "What are those lights in the walls?"

　　Maertyn followed the line of her eyes. Then he looked back into her face. He stared at her eyes and recognized the growing and shrinking of her pupils as her eyes fought to focus on two things at once.

　　"You can See them," Maertyn said.

　　His heart sank. Java`s waters hadn`t just injured Prince Anryn. They`d awaked the Sight in her—the seam torn open by her brush with death in the water. Maertyn cursed, his breath heavy with sorrow and dread.

　　He pushed the gin at her. "Drink this and listen to me: You need to be more careful now. Your sword will not help you anymore."

　　The prince`s hands shook as she took the bottle from it. Anryn did not even flinch when she drank it down. The sting of it helped her eyes to focus. She looked at him, and seemed as lost as she had when they first met on the mountain.

　　"You saved my life. Again. So& I suppose I owe you another bottle of something nice," she said.

　　"I was only doing what you told me to, Your Highness," Maertyn sighed. He wished that Anryn could See into him, to know all the terrible things he had to say without him having to tell her. "I do not want you to die."

　　"Well, you don`t need to worry," Anryn said. "I promise not to kill myself. That was stupid& an ill humor. I won`t do it again."

　　Maertyn was baffled. Why would Anryn try to comfort him when she was the one who needed it, now, more than ever? Maertyn didn`t want to say the words aloud. He did not trust himself with them. He would rage, he would scream. Then Anryn would try even harder to comfort him because it was her nature.

　　He tried, anyway. He owed her that much.

　　"Anryn, I am not worried about what you will do to yourself. I am worried about something worse," Maertyn said. "They are coming, now. The mages. Maybe they were the ones coming for you before& But that was only to kill you. Now they will come to take you to Nynomath. Like they did to me."

　　Anryn stared at him. "But, Professor Lawson said& That doesn`t make sense. Why kidnap me, why not just kill me here in Java?"

　　"Because now you can See," Maertyn said. "They will want you to go to the Dome."

　　Anryn jerked as though he`d slapped her. She snarled, "Not another word. How dare you accuse me of witchcraft? I thought you said that I was under a curse like yours!"

　　"Your curse only made you a man. It did not change anything else," Maertyn said. The voices were back in his head, clamoring, now screaming the prayers used to bind a wild witch. "You can See, now, can`t you? When you look at yourself, can you See your body the way that it looked when I showed you in the mirror?"

　　Anryn hesitated. Then pointed a finger at the far wall, commanding Maertyn to look away.

　　He blushed, and obeyed. He knew that the boy`s body would still be there, but he remembered that other Anryn in the mirror. Maertyn always found himself very shy around pretty women.

　　Behind him, he heard Anryn grind her teeth.

　　"Can you See, now?" Maertyn asked without turning to look around.

　　"She`s there, but& So am I. Like& doubled vision from when you hit your head," the prince reported.

　　"Do you See a mark anywhere on your skin?" Maertyn asked. "The place where they carved the curse? It would have been written on you over many months. If they do it too fast, you die. It must have been when you were young, if you do not remember."

　　"No. No, I don`t remember anything like that," Anryn said. "And, this happened to you? This is the reason you can`t die?"

　　"Do you want to See mine?" Maertyn asked.

　　Maertyn didn`t turn around, but stood up from the bed. He lifted his shirt, showing his back to Anryn. With the Sight, she would be able to see the long lines even in the dark. Nine vertical chains of characters ran from his shoulder to his hips. Maertyn had never seen the tattoo for himself. But he could feel each line of it so keenly, he could have scratched them in the dirt with his finger.

　　He heard Anryn rise from the bed. Then felt her cool, strong fingers tracing the lines along his shoulders, following the letters down his shoulder blades.

　　"Can you read it?" he asked her.

　　"Most of it," she said. "It`s Nynomathian. Formalized speech, repeating itself three times. Whereas, in perpetuity, abiding& Contract language. It`s incomplete."

　　"Because I killed them before they could finish writing it," Maertyn said. He pushed his shirt down, shrugging off her hands.

　　"So. The mages want to take me to Nynomath," said Prince Anryn. "What happens there?"

　　"They feed you poisons, show you things, and ask you questions. It does not matter how you answer or if you vomit up everything that they give you. They will not let you leave. There is a staircase—it goes on forever. If you reach the top before you die, you`re under the Dome. They chain you up, and start to carve."

　　Now Maertyn was ranting, the angry sound of his voice bouncing off the walls full of holy water. His whole body shook, remembering the nine mages standing there at the top of the infernal stairs. Their voices were in his head now, screaming the words they said to him when he arrived in the chamber under the Dome. That this was his fate, and he deserved no better.

　　His star is dark& Misery and woe& That tiny mage standing over him. In her high, clear voice. The little black stick men with shards of glass sticking out of them.

　　"Maertyn." Anryn rested a hand on his shoulder and repeated his name. The prince`s voice drowned out the voices of mages. Her hand on his shoulder steadied him.

　　Maertyn`s eyes stung with tears. What had he done to deserve a friend like her? What had Ammar done to deserve a prince like her? Maertyn decided then, with violence, that he would kill whatever mage came to take Anryn to Nynomath.