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Synopsis
The second book in the acclaimed Licanius Trilogy by James Islington. In the wake of a devastating attack, an amnesty has been declared for all Augurs - finally allowing them to emerge from hiding and openly oppose the dark forces massing against the land of Andarra. As the Augur Davian and his new allies hurry north toward the ever-weakening Boundary, however, fresh horrors along their path suggest that their reprieve may have come far too late. His ally in the Capital, the new Northwarden, contends with assassins and politicians and uncovers a dangerous political secret. Meanwhile, their compatriot Asha begins a secret investigation into the disappearance of the Shadows. And Caeden races against time to fulfill his treacherous bargain with the Lyth, but as more and more of his memories return, he begins to realize that the two sides in this ancient war may not be as clear-cut as they first seemed....
Release date: August 22, 2017
Publisher: Podium Audio
Print pages: 752
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An Echo of Things to Come
James Islington
The following is meant only as a quick, high-level refresher of the events in The Shadow of What Was Lost, rather than a thorough synopsis. As such, many important occurrences and characters will be glossed over during this recap, and some—in a few cases—are not mentioned at all.
Two thousand years ago, the Boundary—a barrier of energy that separates the land of Andarra from the northern wastelands of Talan Gol—was erected. Though many details surrounding this event have been lost, religion holds that the Boundary was created as a prison for Aarkein Devaed, a terrifyingly powerful invader who commanded twisted monsters and sought the destruction of the entire world. During the same tumultuous period in history, the Darecians—a powerful race of people who ruled Andarra at the time of the invasion—mysteriously vanished.
The Darecians’ role was eventually filled by the emergence of the Augurs: a new group of people able to use a power called kan, which (among other abilities) allowed them to see an immutable future. To assist in their governing of Andarra, the Augurs chose the Gifted—those able to manipulate a reserve of their own life force, called Essence, to physically affect the world around them.
This hierarchy, once established, remained virtually unchallenged for hundreds of years.
A generation ago, that changed.
After several embarrassing mistakes, it became apparent that the Augurs’ visions had abruptly stopped coming to pass. Refusing to openly admit that there was a problem, the Augurs instead withdrew from the public eye as they tried to determine what was happening, tasking the Gifted with controlling an increasingly nervous populace. Public unrest soon turned to anger as some of the Gifted began overstepping their new mandate, often violently. A schism in Andarran society quickly formed.
Eventually, things came to a head and a shocking, bloody rebellion overthrew the Augurs and the Gifted, with the uprising instigated by Duke Elocien Andras—a member of the previously token monarchy—and fueled by the mysterious proliferation of new weapons designed to target those with powers. The Augurs were summarily killed, and of the five original Gifted strongholds (called Tols), only two—Tol Athian and Tol Shen—held out against the initial attack.
After spending five years trapped behind their Essence-powered defenses, the Gifted finally signed the Treaty with Duke Andras and the monarchy, officially ending hostilities. The cost to the Gifted, however, was high. The Tenets were created: four magically enforced, unbreakable laws that heavily restricted the use of Gifted abilities. Commoners were also allowed to become Administrators of the Treaty, giving them even more legal and practical control over those who could wield Essence.
Furthermore, any Gifted who broke any terms of the Treaty not covered by the Tenets were forced to become Shadows, permanently stripped of their abilities and horribly disfigured in the process. This applied most often to the unfortunate Gifted students who lacked the skills to pass their graduation Trials, and who were therefore not vouched for by the Tols as able to adequately control their powers.
Thus the Gifted, while technically free again, remained heavily policed and despised by most. Meanwhile, the powers of the Augurs were condemned under the Treaty. For any who were discovered to have such capabilities, a death sentence at the hands of Administration awaited.
Sixteen-year-old Davian is an intelligent, hardworking student at the Gifted school at Caladel—but as his Trials approach, he still cannot figure out how to wield his powers, despite having the Mark on his forearm that both binds him to the Tenets and indicates that he has previously used Essence. To make matters worse, Davian can unfailingly tell when someone is lying—something that only an Augur should be able to do. His closest friends, Wirr and Asha, are the only ones he has told about this unusual skill.
When Elders from Tol Athian arrive early to conduct the Trials, Davian is approached in the dead of night by one of the newcomers, a man called Ilseth Tenvar. Ilseth claims to have been a member of the sig’nari, the group of Gifted who served directly under the Augurs before the rebellion twenty years ago. He admits to knowing that Davian is an Augur, and urges him to leave before he fails his Trials and is turned into a Shadow. Ilseth also provides Davian with a mysterious bronze box, which he explains will guide Davian to somewhere he can be properly trained.
Confident the Elder is telling him the truth, Davian leaves the school that same night; Wirr, after discovering at the last second Davian’s plan to flee, refuses to let him go alone and accompanies him.
Unaware of these events, Asha wakes the following morning to find that everyone in the school has been brutally killed. In shock and not knowing why she is the only one to have escaped the slaughter, she realizes that Davian and Wirr’s bodies are not among the dead. However, when Ilseth discovers that Asha has been left untouched, he reveals himself to have been complicit in the assault. Assuming that Asha was deliberately left alive by his superiors (and being unwilling to kill her himself as a result), Ilseth instead turns her into a Shadow, thereby erasing her memory of everything she has seen that morning—including the knowledge that Davian and Wirr may still be alive.
Davian and Wirr head north, avoiding trouble until they are captured by two Hunters—the Andarran term for those who track down and kill the Gifted for profit. However, they are rescued by another Hunter, Breshada, who despite her profession mysteriously lets them go again, saying only that they owe their thanks to someone called Tal’kamar.
Continuing to follow Ilseth’s instructions, the boys cross the border into Desriel, a country governed by a religious organization called the Gil’shar, who believe that all human manipulation of Essence is an abomination. In Desriel, the punishment for even being born with such an ability is death.
Navigating several dangers, Wirr and Davian are led by Ilseth’s bronze box to a young man named Caeden, a prisoner of the Gil’shar. They set him free, only to be attacked by a creature known as a sha’teth. Caeden saves them from the sha’teth in a display of astonishing power, despite being physically weakened from his captivity.
Meanwhile, Asha is brought to Andarra’s capital Ilin Illan by Ilseth, who continues to pretend that he had nothing to do with the slaughter at Caladel. The Athian Council—the group of Elders who lead Tol Athian—come to believe that Asha may hold the key to finding out more about the attack, but do not wish to share this information with Administration, who are also looking into the incident. The Athian Council decides to keep her at the Tol, hiding her true identity from everyone else.
After a traumatic encounter with a sha’teth that mysteriously refuses to attack her, Asha meets Scyner, the man in charge of a secret underground refuge for Shadows known as the Sanctuary. Scyner recruits Asha to find out why Duke Elocien Andras—head of Administration, and enemy to those in the Sanctuary—is showing such great interest in the attack on her school.
When Elocien hears that Asha is a survivor of the attack, he uses Tol Athian’s need of a new political Representative in the ruling body of the Assembly to have Asha assigned to the palace. Asha soon learns that Wirr is Elocien’s son; he may not only still be alive, but thanks to his birthright will one day be able to single-handedly change the Tenets. Despite Elocien’s reputation as the driving force behind the rebellion twenty years ago, Asha also discovers that he has secretly been working with three young Augurs for the past few years—Kol, Fessi, and Erran. Knowing this, she realizes that she cannot betray Elocien’s trust to Scyner, despite the deal she had previously agreed to.
In Desriel, Davian, Wirr, and Caeden meet Taeris Sarr, a Gifted in hiding who believes that Caeden is somehow tied to the recent, worrying degradation of the Boundary. Taeris also reveals that Ilseth Tenvar lied to Davian during their encounter at the school, and so exactly why Davian was sent to Caeden remains a mystery. Concerned that Ilseth’s motives are untoward and that his bronze box may trigger something undesirable upon contact with Caeden, Taeris recommends that the box be kept away from him until they know more.
Davian and Wirr soon discover that Caeden has been charged with murder by the Gil’shar—but has no memories of his past, and does not even know himself whether the accusations are true. Taeris determines that they need to head back to Andarra, to Ilin Illan, where Tol Athian has a Vessel (an Augur-made device created to use Essence in a specific way) that may be able to restore Caeden’s memories. However, with the Desrielite borders so carefully guarded, they decide that their best course of action is to enlist the help of Princess Karaliene Andras—Wirr’s cousin—in order to get home.
When they finally meet with Karaliene, she recognizes Caeden as an accused murderer and refuses to risk a major diplomatic incident by smuggling him out of the country, despite Wirr’s involvement. Their best hope dashed, Taeris determines that their only other option is to leave Desriel through the ancient, mysteriously abandoned border city of Deilannis.
In Ilin Illan, Asha forges new friendships with the Augurs, soon discovering that they have had unsettling visions of a devastating attack on the capital. Not long after, rumors begin to circulate of an invading force—christened “the Blind” due to their strange eye-covering helmets—approaching from the direction of the Boundary.
As she and Elocien try to determine how best to defend the city without exposing the Augurs, Asha makes the astonishing discovery that the Shadows are still able to access Essence, if they do so by using Vessels. This, she realizes, means that their abilities are only repressed when they are made into a Shadow, and not completely eliminated as was previously assumed.
After an abrupt, strange message from a seemingly older Davian, Asha becomes suspicious of Ilseth’s version of events surrounding the attack on the school at Caladel, and has one of the Augurs restore her lost memory. When she finds out that Ilseth was complicit in the slaughter, she fools him into revealing his lies to the Athian Council, who subsequently imprison him.
As Davian and Wirr travel through the eerie, mist-covered city of Deilannis, they are attacked and Davian is separated from the rest of the group. He is caught in a strange rift, barely surviving his journey through the void; when he emerges back into Deilannis he meets Malshash, an Augur who tells him that he has traveled almost a century backward in time.
Disbelieving at first but eventually convinced of Malshash’s claims, Davian spends time in Deilannis’s Great Library, a massive storehouse of ancient knowledge. Under Malshash’s guidance, he quickly learns to use and control his Augur abilities. Though Malshash’s exact motivations for helping him remain unclear, Davian realizes that his teacher has been studying the rift in the hope that he can change something that has already happened.
Back in the present a devastated Wirr, believing Davian is dead, continues on to Ilin Illan with Taeris and Caeden. As they travel, they come across horrific evidence of the invading force from beyond the Boundary—strengthening their belief that they need to find a way to prevent it from collapsing entirely. Concerned that Caeden’s memories may hold the key to exactly how to do that, they hurry to Ilin Illan before the Blind can reach the city.
Once in Ilin Illan, Taeris attempts to convince the Athian Council to help them, but the Council—having heard the accusations of murder leveled against Caeden and also influenced by their combative past with Taeris—refuse. With nowhere else to turn, Taeris and Caeden take refuge in the palace, where Wirr is able to convince Karaliene that Caeden is a central figure in what is happening.
In Deilannis, a training accident results in Davian experiencing Malshash’s most traumatic memory: the death of his wife Elliavia at their wedding, and Malshash’s desperate, failed attempt to save her afterward. Malshash, after conceding that this is one of the main reasons he wants to alter the past, sends Davian back to the present.
Davian heads for Ilin Illan but is briefly waylaid by another Augur, Ishelle, and an Elder from Tol Shen, Driscin Throll. The two attempt to convince Davian to join Tol Shen, but Davian has heard about the invasion by the Blind and is intent on reaching the capital in time to help.
Davian arrives in Ilin Illan, enjoying an all-too-brief reunion with Asha and Wirr before the Blind finally attack. Meanwhile Caeden and Taeris, understanding that the Athian Council is never going to help them restore Caeden’s memory, plan to sneak into Tol Athian and do so without their permission. However, before they can use the Vessel that will restore Caeden’s memories, Caeden instead activates Ilseth’s mysterious bronze box, a flash of recognition leading him to leave through the fiery portal it subsequently creates.
As Wirr and Davian help with the city’s defenses, Asha convinces Elocien to give Vessels from Administration’s stockpile to the Shadows, as they are not bound by the Tenets and thus can freely use them against the invaders. After Asha and the Shadows join the fight, the Blind’s first attack is successfully thwarted.
Despite this initial victory, Ilin Illan is soon breached and the Blind gain the upper hand in the battle. Elocien is killed as the Andarran forces desperately retreat, and Asha realizes to her horror that he has been under the control of one of the Augurs all along. She decides not tell a grieving Wirr, who, with Davian’s help, hurries to Tol Athian and changes the Tenets so that all Gifted can fight. Even so, it appears that this new advantage may come too late.
Caeden finds himself in Res Kartha, where a man seemingly made of fire—Garadis ru Dagen, one of the Lyth—reveals that Caeden wiped his own memory, setting this series of events into motion in order to fulfill the terms of a bargain between the Lyth and someone called Andrael. This bargain now allows Caeden to take the sword Licanius, a powerful Vessel—but it also stipulates that he may keep the sword for only a year and a day, unless he devises a way to free the Lyth from Res Kartha.
Concerned about what he has agreed to but even more concerned for his friends, Caeden returns to Ilin Illan, utilizing the astonishing power of Licanius to destroy the invading army just as defeat for the Andarran forces seems inevitable.
In the aftermath of the battle—having revealed himself as an Augur during the fighting—Davian decides to take Ishelle up on her offer and head south to Tol Shen, where he believes he will be able to continue looking for a way to strengthen the Boundary against the dark forces beyond. Asha chooses to remain in Ilin Illan as Representative, while Wirr inherits the role of Northwarden, head of Administration.
Still searching for answers about his past, and determined to help his friends fight whatever is beyond the Boundary, Caeden uses the bronze Portal Box again. He this time finds himself in the Wells of Mor Aruil and meets an Augur named Asar Shenelac, who appears to recognize him.
To Caeden’s horror, Asar restores a memory that indicates not only that Caeden was responsible for the murders in Desriel of which he was accused—but that he is in fact Aarkein Devaed.
The morning air was still as Caeden brushed his thumb against the axe’s edge, nodding as a fine line of crimson blushed where the skin made contact.
He stared at the gently welling blood for a few moments, its momentary sting nothing against the sudden onslaught of memory the sight provided. Time—almost a year, now—hadn’t dulled the edge of his guilt, hadn’t helped his horror to fade.
Nor had it eased the inescapable ache of his loss. To Caeden’s shame, that still hurt more than everything else combined.
Would this work? Surely it had to. He felt absently at his neck, probing at the welts from where the rope had twisted and scraped, tightened. He remembered the snap as he’d jerked to a stop.
And he remembered the tears as he’d woken, just dangling there, unable to breathe but his body refusing to fail regardless. Remembered his disbelief when his hands and legs had been able to move, as if nothing had happened.
He’d hung there for hours in a stupor, waiting for an end that refused to come.
Caeden inhaled sharply and steeled himself against the memory, handing the axe to the grizzled captain standing opposite. It was taken hesitantly, the burly man’s uncertainty unmistakable.
“Are you sure about this, Lord Deshrel?” he asked quietly.
Caeden nodded once, then knelt. Placed his head carefully on the block.
“A clean cut, Sadien. All the way through. If it is not …” He swallowed, then twisted slightly to look up. “A clean cut,” he repeated, his tone firm.
Sadien hefted the weapon, expression bleak, then gave a single nod.
Caeden turned back toward the ground. He closed his eyes.
“I am sorry, Ell,” he said softly as the blade fell.
Caeden gave a choking gasp as he came awake.
His hands flew to his neck, searching for the wound he knew had to be there. They came away clean of blood; even so it took several seconds to orient himself, to separate what he had seen from where he was.
Slowly the pounding of his heart began to ease and he lay sprawled on his back for a while, just breathing, staring vacantly at the black stone ceiling. Gently pulsing veins of Essence—Caeden thought that it was Essence, anyway—ran haphazardly across its surface, standing out jaggedly against the dark, smooth stone. Colors trickled through those veins in a constant, rhythmic, hypnotic waterfall of motion. Green here, a deep blue there. A soft yellow, then an unsettling red. The hues fluctuated and coalesced through the thin spiderweb of lines, not overpowering the clean light of the Essence lamp by Caeden’s bed, but bright enough to consistently draw his eye.
He was still here—still in the same plainly furnished, perfectly circular chamber. Still deep underground, right where the Portal Box had sent him after the battle in Ilin Illan.
“You remembered something.”
Caeden flinched, then rolled and scrambled weakly to his feet, stumbling a couple of steps away from the balding, white-bearded man standing in the doorway.
“Leave me alone.” His voice was hoarse, little more than a whisper.
Asar stooped, carefully placing a plate of food and a cup on the ground between them. The motion was familiar now, well practiced. He straightened again, for a moment looking as though he was about to leave.
Then he touched the sword at his side, a gesture more than a warning.
“A year and a day, Tal’kamar,” Asar said softly, the gently shifting lights from the wall reflected in his eyes. “And now you have two weeks less than that—two weeks less to stop the end of all we know. Two weeks in which you’ve barely eaten, barely drank anything. Barely slept, as far as I’ve been able to tell.” The older man stared at Caeden for another long moment, then shook his head, looking bewildered. “Why do you still fight it? I knew it would come as a shock, but this … have you truly changed so much?”
“Yes.” Caeden snarled the word, but he could hear the desperation in it. “I am not … him.”
“How can you tell?” asked Asar quietly. “You do not even know who he is.”
“I know enough.”
“I doubt that. You know a couple of stories, a few grains of sand in the hourglass of your life. And out of context, at that.” Asar’s eyes showed his concern. “I cannot force this on you, Tal’kamar—for it to work, you must be willing. But you know I speak the truth. You still have the Portal Box, so you could have run. You could be a world away by now. Yet here we stand.”
Caeden grimaced but didn’t argue. The bronze cube with the mysterious markings—the Vessel that had brought Caeden here in the first place—was still in his pocket. He closed his eyes for a long moment, trying to shut out the anger, the fear, the despair. Every emotion told him to run, to ignore anything that might touch on what he’d seen. What he’d done.
But he knew, deep down, that it wouldn’t change anything. He couldn’t avoid his past forever. And the longer he waited, the harder facing it would be.
He wanted nothing more than to tell Asar to leave, as he had every other time the man had come.
But he didn’t.
Slowly, he shuffled forward. Picked up the cup on the ground and took a few sips, letting the cool liquid slide down his raw throat.
“I remember dying,” he said quietly. He gave an involuntary shiver. “I remember the blade falling on my neck, and …” He trailed off.
Asar’s expression didn’t change, but what Caeden thought was pity glinted in his eyes. “That must be disorienting.”
Caeden gave a humorless laugh, rubbing again at his neck. “Yes.”
He hesitated. Part of him wanted to ask—ask how he could still be here, how he could remember something like that.
But the other part still didn’t want to know.
Asar continued to study him, then took a seat opposite with a sigh. “Tal’kamar, we do not have time to just—”
“I didn’t believe it at first.” Caeden forced himself to maintain eye contact with Asar, but he couldn’t keep the pain from his tone. “When you showed me … that … I thought you were trying to fool me, for some end that I didn’t understand. I did consider running, using the Portal Box again. I considered finding you and trying to force a confession from you, too.”
Asar watched him impassively, silent.
Caeden took a deep breath, but his voice still trembled as he spoke. “I knew that the memory was mine, though. I knew. Just like I know that I remember dying. I didn’t dream that I died. I remember dying.” He dropped his gaze, hands shaking as the torrent of emotions he had fought constantly over the past two weeks threatened to overcome him again. Shame. Fear. Horror. Rage. Crushing, soul-searing guilt. And threaded through it all, that ever-present, impossibly heavy cord of despair. “So you’re right. I know the truth.”
“And yet?” asked Asar softly.
Caeden gave another rasping laugh, spreading his hands. He was beyond lying, beyond subtlety. Honesty was all he could manage. “And yet I still fear it. I fear what knowing the rest will do to me. How it will change me.” He raised his eyes so that they met Asar’s again. “A friend of mine once told me that when I got my memories back, I would have a choice. That no matter what I’d done, who I’d been … that I had a decision to make, moving forward. That the man I have been since I woke up in the forest, the one I want to be, doesn’t have to be erased by what I remember. Shouldn’t be erased.” He kept his gaze locked on Asar’s, but he could still feel his hands quivering as unwanted echoes of memory crashed around in his head. “But I killed people. Murdered them. Fates, I was Aarkein Devaed.”
Asar watched him for a long moment.
Then he nodded slowly.
“You did. You were. You want reassurance, but …” He gave the slightest of apologetic shrugs. “In some ways we are slaves to our memories. What you remember will change you. The knowledge you gain will change you. Understanding what is at stake will change you, change how easy it is for you to be the man you aspire to be. It will be easier to make choices you might believe unthinkable now. It will be harder to choose what is right over what is expedient, when you know how many times that has resulted in failure, and how important it is to succeed.” He leaned forward, expression serious. “But all of us who live long enough face that problem, Tal’kamar. Sometimes it’s what’s right against what lets us win. Sometimes it’s what’s right against what lets us survive. But it is always a choice.”
Caeden swallowed, clenched his fists. Nodded. The next line of inquiry was the hardest, the one that had been burning within him since the moment Asar had shown him who he was.
“I remember … I remember renouncing the name Aarkein Devaed,” he said quietly, heart pounding. “I was glad that I would not remember the things I’d done as him.” It was the only reason he was still here.
Asar leaned back, nodding slowly in response to the unasked question.
“Yes, Tal’kamar. You did. You rejected the name. You took the narrow road. You switched sides,” he said gently, a surprising note of pride in his tone. “If it helps, you had stopped being Aarkein Devaed long before you lost your memory. We have been trying to stop what he started for a long time now. We are fighting everything that he once stood for.”
Caeden breathed out, entire body going limp. He took a few seconds and allowed himself a long draught of water this time, a wave of emotion rolling over him.
Then he looked up at Asar, resolve beginning to return alongside the relief.
“And my memories,” he said softly. “They’ll help us stop the invasion?”
Asar was silent for a few seconds, and Caeden saw the answer in his hesitation.
“This is about so much more than that,” the older man said eventually. “You are right to want to save the country, Tal’kamar, but this is about saving the world. We are at the brink of resolving a conflict that has raged for lifetimes, and sometimes we need to choose the greater good. We need to—”
“We need to do both. I haven’t come here just so that I can leave my friends to their fate.” Caeden cocked his head to the side, a flash of memory triggering. “The lesser of two evils, and the greater good. The most dangerous phrases in the world.”
Asar studied Caeden, looking more taken aback than irritated.
“Even so, sometimes sacrifice cannot be avoided. If you would just let me restore your memories—all of your memories—then you would understand.” Despite the words, Asar’s tone held a note of uncertainty now.
Caeden leaned forward. “You said I wanted to change,” he said softly. “Perhaps this is one of the reasons why.”
Asar grunted. “Perhaps,” he conceded, not looking pleased at the thought. He shook his head. “But that is a conversation for another time. For now, we at least need to restore the memories you wanted. You need to understand what we’re trying to do, and why.” He gestured. “Follow me.”
Caeden hesitated, then reluctantly trailed after Asar, stumbling a little as he vainly tried to stretch muscles that were stiff from disuse.
The tunnel outside his room was lined with more of the strange, variegated veins of light pulsing in between its smooth black surfaces. It seemed to be the same everywhere on this lower level, but Caeden couldn’t even begin to hazard what might be causing the strange phenomenon.
“What is this place?” he asked eventually, his voice echoing hollowly down the passageway.
“I told you when you arrived. The Wells of Mor Aruil.” Asar said nothing for a moment, then glanced across and shook his head as if suddenly realizing that the name would mean nothing to Caeden. “Mor Aruil was once a Darecian outpost, a tiny island not far from the edge of the Shattered Lands. We didn’t know for a very long time, but the Darecians were here because they had discovered a massive source of Essence. These tunnels were once all conduits, part of the system they used to draw that Essence to the surface.” He snorted softly at Caeden’s look. “No need to be concerned—the Wells went dry millennia ago. The Darecians used some of these tunnels as storage for a while after that, but the island never had much value from a tactical perspective. They eventually closed it all off. Abandoned it. Every tunnel connected to where we are is shielded, protected, impossible to break into. The only way in or out is by opening a Gate.”
Caeden skipped a couple of steps to keep up with Asar. “A Gate?” The other man had said the word as if it were significant.
“A portal. A less … fiery version of what that bronze box of yours does,” Asar elaborated wryly. “Very few people know how to make Gates, so even if the others somehow know where we are, none of them can get in here.” He shrugged. “And even if they could—I am by far the strongest of the remaining Venerate. It would take all of them combined to beat me, here. We are safe enough.” There was no boasting in Asar’s voice, just a quiet, reassuring confidence that what he said was true. Caeden felt the tension in his shoulders relax ever so slightly at the words.
They reached the end of the tunnel, and Caeden blinked as they emerged into a large room. Like the upper level of Mor Aruil—the one on which the Portal Box had first deposited him two weeks ago—no shifting colors trickled through the walls here. Light was provided by smokeless yellow torches that burned low but steady, illuminating walls lined with bookshelves, each one filled to overflowing with tomes and loose paper. In the corner, a single bed was neatly made.
Asar gestured Caeden to a seat; after a moment Caeden slowly took it. “You live here?”
“I do.”
Something in Asar’s voice made Caeden pause. He glanced around again at the small bed, the shelves of books. “You said no one could
Two thousand years ago, the Boundary—a barrier of energy that separates the land of Andarra from the northern wastelands of Talan Gol—was erected. Though many details surrounding this event have been lost, religion holds that the Boundary was created as a prison for Aarkein Devaed, a terrifyingly powerful invader who commanded twisted monsters and sought the destruction of the entire world. During the same tumultuous period in history, the Darecians—a powerful race of people who ruled Andarra at the time of the invasion—mysteriously vanished.
The Darecians’ role was eventually filled by the emergence of the Augurs: a new group of people able to use a power called kan, which (among other abilities) allowed them to see an immutable future. To assist in their governing of Andarra, the Augurs chose the Gifted—those able to manipulate a reserve of their own life force, called Essence, to physically affect the world around them.
This hierarchy, once established, remained virtually unchallenged for hundreds of years.
A generation ago, that changed.
After several embarrassing mistakes, it became apparent that the Augurs’ visions had abruptly stopped coming to pass. Refusing to openly admit that there was a problem, the Augurs instead withdrew from the public eye as they tried to determine what was happening, tasking the Gifted with controlling an increasingly nervous populace. Public unrest soon turned to anger as some of the Gifted began overstepping their new mandate, often violently. A schism in Andarran society quickly formed.
Eventually, things came to a head and a shocking, bloody rebellion overthrew the Augurs and the Gifted, with the uprising instigated by Duke Elocien Andras—a member of the previously token monarchy—and fueled by the mysterious proliferation of new weapons designed to target those with powers. The Augurs were summarily killed, and of the five original Gifted strongholds (called Tols), only two—Tol Athian and Tol Shen—held out against the initial attack.
After spending five years trapped behind their Essence-powered defenses, the Gifted finally signed the Treaty with Duke Andras and the monarchy, officially ending hostilities. The cost to the Gifted, however, was high. The Tenets were created: four magically enforced, unbreakable laws that heavily restricted the use of Gifted abilities. Commoners were also allowed to become Administrators of the Treaty, giving them even more legal and practical control over those who could wield Essence.
Furthermore, any Gifted who broke any terms of the Treaty not covered by the Tenets were forced to become Shadows, permanently stripped of their abilities and horribly disfigured in the process. This applied most often to the unfortunate Gifted students who lacked the skills to pass their graduation Trials, and who were therefore not vouched for by the Tols as able to adequately control their powers.
Thus the Gifted, while technically free again, remained heavily policed and despised by most. Meanwhile, the powers of the Augurs were condemned under the Treaty. For any who were discovered to have such capabilities, a death sentence at the hands of Administration awaited.
Sixteen-year-old Davian is an intelligent, hardworking student at the Gifted school at Caladel—but as his Trials approach, he still cannot figure out how to wield his powers, despite having the Mark on his forearm that both binds him to the Tenets and indicates that he has previously used Essence. To make matters worse, Davian can unfailingly tell when someone is lying—something that only an Augur should be able to do. His closest friends, Wirr and Asha, are the only ones he has told about this unusual skill.
When Elders from Tol Athian arrive early to conduct the Trials, Davian is approached in the dead of night by one of the newcomers, a man called Ilseth Tenvar. Ilseth claims to have been a member of the sig’nari, the group of Gifted who served directly under the Augurs before the rebellion twenty years ago. He admits to knowing that Davian is an Augur, and urges him to leave before he fails his Trials and is turned into a Shadow. Ilseth also provides Davian with a mysterious bronze box, which he explains will guide Davian to somewhere he can be properly trained.
Confident the Elder is telling him the truth, Davian leaves the school that same night; Wirr, after discovering at the last second Davian’s plan to flee, refuses to let him go alone and accompanies him.
Unaware of these events, Asha wakes the following morning to find that everyone in the school has been brutally killed. In shock and not knowing why she is the only one to have escaped the slaughter, she realizes that Davian and Wirr’s bodies are not among the dead. However, when Ilseth discovers that Asha has been left untouched, he reveals himself to have been complicit in the assault. Assuming that Asha was deliberately left alive by his superiors (and being unwilling to kill her himself as a result), Ilseth instead turns her into a Shadow, thereby erasing her memory of everything she has seen that morning—including the knowledge that Davian and Wirr may still be alive.
Davian and Wirr head north, avoiding trouble until they are captured by two Hunters—the Andarran term for those who track down and kill the Gifted for profit. However, they are rescued by another Hunter, Breshada, who despite her profession mysteriously lets them go again, saying only that they owe their thanks to someone called Tal’kamar.
Continuing to follow Ilseth’s instructions, the boys cross the border into Desriel, a country governed by a religious organization called the Gil’shar, who believe that all human manipulation of Essence is an abomination. In Desriel, the punishment for even being born with such an ability is death.
Navigating several dangers, Wirr and Davian are led by Ilseth’s bronze box to a young man named Caeden, a prisoner of the Gil’shar. They set him free, only to be attacked by a creature known as a sha’teth. Caeden saves them from the sha’teth in a display of astonishing power, despite being physically weakened from his captivity.
Meanwhile, Asha is brought to Andarra’s capital Ilin Illan by Ilseth, who continues to pretend that he had nothing to do with the slaughter at Caladel. The Athian Council—the group of Elders who lead Tol Athian—come to believe that Asha may hold the key to finding out more about the attack, but do not wish to share this information with Administration, who are also looking into the incident. The Athian Council decides to keep her at the Tol, hiding her true identity from everyone else.
After a traumatic encounter with a sha’teth that mysteriously refuses to attack her, Asha meets Scyner, the man in charge of a secret underground refuge for Shadows known as the Sanctuary. Scyner recruits Asha to find out why Duke Elocien Andras—head of Administration, and enemy to those in the Sanctuary—is showing such great interest in the attack on her school.
When Elocien hears that Asha is a survivor of the attack, he uses Tol Athian’s need of a new political Representative in the ruling body of the Assembly to have Asha assigned to the palace. Asha soon learns that Wirr is Elocien’s son; he may not only still be alive, but thanks to his birthright will one day be able to single-handedly change the Tenets. Despite Elocien’s reputation as the driving force behind the rebellion twenty years ago, Asha also discovers that he has secretly been working with three young Augurs for the past few years—Kol, Fessi, and Erran. Knowing this, she realizes that she cannot betray Elocien’s trust to Scyner, despite the deal she had previously agreed to.
In Desriel, Davian, Wirr, and Caeden meet Taeris Sarr, a Gifted in hiding who believes that Caeden is somehow tied to the recent, worrying degradation of the Boundary. Taeris also reveals that Ilseth Tenvar lied to Davian during their encounter at the school, and so exactly why Davian was sent to Caeden remains a mystery. Concerned that Ilseth’s motives are untoward and that his bronze box may trigger something undesirable upon contact with Caeden, Taeris recommends that the box be kept away from him until they know more.
Davian and Wirr soon discover that Caeden has been charged with murder by the Gil’shar—but has no memories of his past, and does not even know himself whether the accusations are true. Taeris determines that they need to head back to Andarra, to Ilin Illan, where Tol Athian has a Vessel (an Augur-made device created to use Essence in a specific way) that may be able to restore Caeden’s memories. However, with the Desrielite borders so carefully guarded, they decide that their best course of action is to enlist the help of Princess Karaliene Andras—Wirr’s cousin—in order to get home.
When they finally meet with Karaliene, she recognizes Caeden as an accused murderer and refuses to risk a major diplomatic incident by smuggling him out of the country, despite Wirr’s involvement. Their best hope dashed, Taeris determines that their only other option is to leave Desriel through the ancient, mysteriously abandoned border city of Deilannis.
In Ilin Illan, Asha forges new friendships with the Augurs, soon discovering that they have had unsettling visions of a devastating attack on the capital. Not long after, rumors begin to circulate of an invading force—christened “the Blind” due to their strange eye-covering helmets—approaching from the direction of the Boundary.
As she and Elocien try to determine how best to defend the city without exposing the Augurs, Asha makes the astonishing discovery that the Shadows are still able to access Essence, if they do so by using Vessels. This, she realizes, means that their abilities are only repressed when they are made into a Shadow, and not completely eliminated as was previously assumed.
After an abrupt, strange message from a seemingly older Davian, Asha becomes suspicious of Ilseth’s version of events surrounding the attack on the school at Caladel, and has one of the Augurs restore her lost memory. When she finds out that Ilseth was complicit in the slaughter, she fools him into revealing his lies to the Athian Council, who subsequently imprison him.
As Davian and Wirr travel through the eerie, mist-covered city of Deilannis, they are attacked and Davian is separated from the rest of the group. He is caught in a strange rift, barely surviving his journey through the void; when he emerges back into Deilannis he meets Malshash, an Augur who tells him that he has traveled almost a century backward in time.
Disbelieving at first but eventually convinced of Malshash’s claims, Davian spends time in Deilannis’s Great Library, a massive storehouse of ancient knowledge. Under Malshash’s guidance, he quickly learns to use and control his Augur abilities. Though Malshash’s exact motivations for helping him remain unclear, Davian realizes that his teacher has been studying the rift in the hope that he can change something that has already happened.
Back in the present a devastated Wirr, believing Davian is dead, continues on to Ilin Illan with Taeris and Caeden. As they travel, they come across horrific evidence of the invading force from beyond the Boundary—strengthening their belief that they need to find a way to prevent it from collapsing entirely. Concerned that Caeden’s memories may hold the key to exactly how to do that, they hurry to Ilin Illan before the Blind can reach the city.
Once in Ilin Illan, Taeris attempts to convince the Athian Council to help them, but the Council—having heard the accusations of murder leveled against Caeden and also influenced by their combative past with Taeris—refuse. With nowhere else to turn, Taeris and Caeden take refuge in the palace, where Wirr is able to convince Karaliene that Caeden is a central figure in what is happening.
In Deilannis, a training accident results in Davian experiencing Malshash’s most traumatic memory: the death of his wife Elliavia at their wedding, and Malshash’s desperate, failed attempt to save her afterward. Malshash, after conceding that this is one of the main reasons he wants to alter the past, sends Davian back to the present.
Davian heads for Ilin Illan but is briefly waylaid by another Augur, Ishelle, and an Elder from Tol Shen, Driscin Throll. The two attempt to convince Davian to join Tol Shen, but Davian has heard about the invasion by the Blind and is intent on reaching the capital in time to help.
Davian arrives in Ilin Illan, enjoying an all-too-brief reunion with Asha and Wirr before the Blind finally attack. Meanwhile Caeden and Taeris, understanding that the Athian Council is never going to help them restore Caeden’s memory, plan to sneak into Tol Athian and do so without their permission. However, before they can use the Vessel that will restore Caeden’s memories, Caeden instead activates Ilseth’s mysterious bronze box, a flash of recognition leading him to leave through the fiery portal it subsequently creates.
As Wirr and Davian help with the city’s defenses, Asha convinces Elocien to give Vessels from Administration’s stockpile to the Shadows, as they are not bound by the Tenets and thus can freely use them against the invaders. After Asha and the Shadows join the fight, the Blind’s first attack is successfully thwarted.
Despite this initial victory, Ilin Illan is soon breached and the Blind gain the upper hand in the battle. Elocien is killed as the Andarran forces desperately retreat, and Asha realizes to her horror that he has been under the control of one of the Augurs all along. She decides not tell a grieving Wirr, who, with Davian’s help, hurries to Tol Athian and changes the Tenets so that all Gifted can fight. Even so, it appears that this new advantage may come too late.
Caeden finds himself in Res Kartha, where a man seemingly made of fire—Garadis ru Dagen, one of the Lyth—reveals that Caeden wiped his own memory, setting this series of events into motion in order to fulfill the terms of a bargain between the Lyth and someone called Andrael. This bargain now allows Caeden to take the sword Licanius, a powerful Vessel—but it also stipulates that he may keep the sword for only a year and a day, unless he devises a way to free the Lyth from Res Kartha.
Concerned about what he has agreed to but even more concerned for his friends, Caeden returns to Ilin Illan, utilizing the astonishing power of Licanius to destroy the invading army just as defeat for the Andarran forces seems inevitable.
In the aftermath of the battle—having revealed himself as an Augur during the fighting—Davian decides to take Ishelle up on her offer and head south to Tol Shen, where he believes he will be able to continue looking for a way to strengthen the Boundary against the dark forces beyond. Asha chooses to remain in Ilin Illan as Representative, while Wirr inherits the role of Northwarden, head of Administration.
Still searching for answers about his past, and determined to help his friends fight whatever is beyond the Boundary, Caeden uses the bronze Portal Box again. He this time finds himself in the Wells of Mor Aruil and meets an Augur named Asar Shenelac, who appears to recognize him.
To Caeden’s horror, Asar restores a memory that indicates not only that Caeden was responsible for the murders in Desriel of which he was accused—but that he is in fact Aarkein Devaed.
The morning air was still as Caeden brushed his thumb against the axe’s edge, nodding as a fine line of crimson blushed where the skin made contact.
He stared at the gently welling blood for a few moments, its momentary sting nothing against the sudden onslaught of memory the sight provided. Time—almost a year, now—hadn’t dulled the edge of his guilt, hadn’t helped his horror to fade.
Nor had it eased the inescapable ache of his loss. To Caeden’s shame, that still hurt more than everything else combined.
Would this work? Surely it had to. He felt absently at his neck, probing at the welts from where the rope had twisted and scraped, tightened. He remembered the snap as he’d jerked to a stop.
And he remembered the tears as he’d woken, just dangling there, unable to breathe but his body refusing to fail regardless. Remembered his disbelief when his hands and legs had been able to move, as if nothing had happened.
He’d hung there for hours in a stupor, waiting for an end that refused to come.
Caeden inhaled sharply and steeled himself against the memory, handing the axe to the grizzled captain standing opposite. It was taken hesitantly, the burly man’s uncertainty unmistakable.
“Are you sure about this, Lord Deshrel?” he asked quietly.
Caeden nodded once, then knelt. Placed his head carefully on the block.
“A clean cut, Sadien. All the way through. If it is not …” He swallowed, then twisted slightly to look up. “A clean cut,” he repeated, his tone firm.
Sadien hefted the weapon, expression bleak, then gave a single nod.
Caeden turned back toward the ground. He closed his eyes.
“I am sorry, Ell,” he said softly as the blade fell.
Caeden gave a choking gasp as he came awake.
His hands flew to his neck, searching for the wound he knew had to be there. They came away clean of blood; even so it took several seconds to orient himself, to separate what he had seen from where he was.
Slowly the pounding of his heart began to ease and he lay sprawled on his back for a while, just breathing, staring vacantly at the black stone ceiling. Gently pulsing veins of Essence—Caeden thought that it was Essence, anyway—ran haphazardly across its surface, standing out jaggedly against the dark, smooth stone. Colors trickled through those veins in a constant, rhythmic, hypnotic waterfall of motion. Green here, a deep blue there. A soft yellow, then an unsettling red. The hues fluctuated and coalesced through the thin spiderweb of lines, not overpowering the clean light of the Essence lamp by Caeden’s bed, but bright enough to consistently draw his eye.
He was still here—still in the same plainly furnished, perfectly circular chamber. Still deep underground, right where the Portal Box had sent him after the battle in Ilin Illan.
“You remembered something.”
Caeden flinched, then rolled and scrambled weakly to his feet, stumbling a couple of steps away from the balding, white-bearded man standing in the doorway.
“Leave me alone.” His voice was hoarse, little more than a whisper.
Asar stooped, carefully placing a plate of food and a cup on the ground between them. The motion was familiar now, well practiced. He straightened again, for a moment looking as though he was about to leave.
Then he touched the sword at his side, a gesture more than a warning.
“A year and a day, Tal’kamar,” Asar said softly, the gently shifting lights from the wall reflected in his eyes. “And now you have two weeks less than that—two weeks less to stop the end of all we know. Two weeks in which you’ve barely eaten, barely drank anything. Barely slept, as far as I’ve been able to tell.” The older man stared at Caeden for another long moment, then shook his head, looking bewildered. “Why do you still fight it? I knew it would come as a shock, but this … have you truly changed so much?”
“Yes.” Caeden snarled the word, but he could hear the desperation in it. “I am not … him.”
“How can you tell?” asked Asar quietly. “You do not even know who he is.”
“I know enough.”
“I doubt that. You know a couple of stories, a few grains of sand in the hourglass of your life. And out of context, at that.” Asar’s eyes showed his concern. “I cannot force this on you, Tal’kamar—for it to work, you must be willing. But you know I speak the truth. You still have the Portal Box, so you could have run. You could be a world away by now. Yet here we stand.”
Caeden grimaced but didn’t argue. The bronze cube with the mysterious markings—the Vessel that had brought Caeden here in the first place—was still in his pocket. He closed his eyes for a long moment, trying to shut out the anger, the fear, the despair. Every emotion told him to run, to ignore anything that might touch on what he’d seen. What he’d done.
But he knew, deep down, that it wouldn’t change anything. He couldn’t avoid his past forever. And the longer he waited, the harder facing it would be.
He wanted nothing more than to tell Asar to leave, as he had every other time the man had come.
But he didn’t.
Slowly, he shuffled forward. Picked up the cup on the ground and took a few sips, letting the cool liquid slide down his raw throat.
“I remember dying,” he said quietly. He gave an involuntary shiver. “I remember the blade falling on my neck, and …” He trailed off.
Asar’s expression didn’t change, but what Caeden thought was pity glinted in his eyes. “That must be disorienting.”
Caeden gave a humorless laugh, rubbing again at his neck. “Yes.”
He hesitated. Part of him wanted to ask—ask how he could still be here, how he could remember something like that.
But the other part still didn’t want to know.
Asar continued to study him, then took a seat opposite with a sigh. “Tal’kamar, we do not have time to just—”
“I didn’t believe it at first.” Caeden forced himself to maintain eye contact with Asar, but he couldn’t keep the pain from his tone. “When you showed me … that … I thought you were trying to fool me, for some end that I didn’t understand. I did consider running, using the Portal Box again. I considered finding you and trying to force a confession from you, too.”
Asar watched him impassively, silent.
Caeden took a deep breath, but his voice still trembled as he spoke. “I knew that the memory was mine, though. I knew. Just like I know that I remember dying. I didn’t dream that I died. I remember dying.” He dropped his gaze, hands shaking as the torrent of emotions he had fought constantly over the past two weeks threatened to overcome him again. Shame. Fear. Horror. Rage. Crushing, soul-searing guilt. And threaded through it all, that ever-present, impossibly heavy cord of despair. “So you’re right. I know the truth.”
“And yet?” asked Asar softly.
Caeden gave another rasping laugh, spreading his hands. He was beyond lying, beyond subtlety. Honesty was all he could manage. “And yet I still fear it. I fear what knowing the rest will do to me. How it will change me.” He raised his eyes so that they met Asar’s again. “A friend of mine once told me that when I got my memories back, I would have a choice. That no matter what I’d done, who I’d been … that I had a decision to make, moving forward. That the man I have been since I woke up in the forest, the one I want to be, doesn’t have to be erased by what I remember. Shouldn’t be erased.” He kept his gaze locked on Asar’s, but he could still feel his hands quivering as unwanted echoes of memory crashed around in his head. “But I killed people. Murdered them. Fates, I was Aarkein Devaed.”
Asar watched him for a long moment.
Then he nodded slowly.
“You did. You were. You want reassurance, but …” He gave the slightest of apologetic shrugs. “In some ways we are slaves to our memories. What you remember will change you. The knowledge you gain will change you. Understanding what is at stake will change you, change how easy it is for you to be the man you aspire to be. It will be easier to make choices you might believe unthinkable now. It will be harder to choose what is right over what is expedient, when you know how many times that has resulted in failure, and how important it is to succeed.” He leaned forward, expression serious. “But all of us who live long enough face that problem, Tal’kamar. Sometimes it’s what’s right against what lets us win. Sometimes it’s what’s right against what lets us survive. But it is always a choice.”
Caeden swallowed, clenched his fists. Nodded. The next line of inquiry was the hardest, the one that had been burning within him since the moment Asar had shown him who he was.
“I remember … I remember renouncing the name Aarkein Devaed,” he said quietly, heart pounding. “I was glad that I would not remember the things I’d done as him.” It was the only reason he was still here.
Asar leaned back, nodding slowly in response to the unasked question.
“Yes, Tal’kamar. You did. You rejected the name. You took the narrow road. You switched sides,” he said gently, a surprising note of pride in his tone. “If it helps, you had stopped being Aarkein Devaed long before you lost your memory. We have been trying to stop what he started for a long time now. We are fighting everything that he once stood for.”
Caeden breathed out, entire body going limp. He took a few seconds and allowed himself a long draught of water this time, a wave of emotion rolling over him.
Then he looked up at Asar, resolve beginning to return alongside the relief.
“And my memories,” he said softly. “They’ll help us stop the invasion?”
Asar was silent for a few seconds, and Caeden saw the answer in his hesitation.
“This is about so much more than that,” the older man said eventually. “You are right to want to save the country, Tal’kamar, but this is about saving the world. We are at the brink of resolving a conflict that has raged for lifetimes, and sometimes we need to choose the greater good. We need to—”
“We need to do both. I haven’t come here just so that I can leave my friends to their fate.” Caeden cocked his head to the side, a flash of memory triggering. “The lesser of two evils, and the greater good. The most dangerous phrases in the world.”
Asar studied Caeden, looking more taken aback than irritated.
“Even so, sometimes sacrifice cannot be avoided. If you would just let me restore your memories—all of your memories—then you would understand.” Despite the words, Asar’s tone held a note of uncertainty now.
Caeden leaned forward. “You said I wanted to change,” he said softly. “Perhaps this is one of the reasons why.”
Asar grunted. “Perhaps,” he conceded, not looking pleased at the thought. He shook his head. “But that is a conversation for another time. For now, we at least need to restore the memories you wanted. You need to understand what we’re trying to do, and why.” He gestured. “Follow me.”
Caeden hesitated, then reluctantly trailed after Asar, stumbling a little as he vainly tried to stretch muscles that were stiff from disuse.
The tunnel outside his room was lined with more of the strange, variegated veins of light pulsing in between its smooth black surfaces. It seemed to be the same everywhere on this lower level, but Caeden couldn’t even begin to hazard what might be causing the strange phenomenon.
“What is this place?” he asked eventually, his voice echoing hollowly down the passageway.
“I told you when you arrived. The Wells of Mor Aruil.” Asar said nothing for a moment, then glanced across and shook his head as if suddenly realizing that the name would mean nothing to Caeden. “Mor Aruil was once a Darecian outpost, a tiny island not far from the edge of the Shattered Lands. We didn’t know for a very long time, but the Darecians were here because they had discovered a massive source of Essence. These tunnels were once all conduits, part of the system they used to draw that Essence to the surface.” He snorted softly at Caeden’s look. “No need to be concerned—the Wells went dry millennia ago. The Darecians used some of these tunnels as storage for a while after that, but the island never had much value from a tactical perspective. They eventually closed it all off. Abandoned it. Every tunnel connected to where we are is shielded, protected, impossible to break into. The only way in or out is by opening a Gate.”
Caeden skipped a couple of steps to keep up with Asar. “A Gate?” The other man had said the word as if it were significant.
“A portal. A less … fiery version of what that bronze box of yours does,” Asar elaborated wryly. “Very few people know how to make Gates, so even if the others somehow know where we are, none of them can get in here.” He shrugged. “And even if they could—I am by far the strongest of the remaining Venerate. It would take all of them combined to beat me, here. We are safe enough.” There was no boasting in Asar’s voice, just a quiet, reassuring confidence that what he said was true. Caeden felt the tension in his shoulders relax ever so slightly at the words.
They reached the end of the tunnel, and Caeden blinked as they emerged into a large room. Like the upper level of Mor Aruil—the one on which the Portal Box had first deposited him two weeks ago—no shifting colors trickled through the walls here. Light was provided by smokeless yellow torches that burned low but steady, illuminating walls lined with bookshelves, each one filled to overflowing with tomes and loose paper. In the corner, a single bed was neatly made.
Asar gestured Caeden to a seat; after a moment Caeden slowly took it. “You live here?”
“I do.”
Something in Asar’s voice made Caeden pause. He glanced around again at the small bed, the shelves of books. “You said no one could
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An Echo of Things to Come
James Islington
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