Chapter IV: A Single Lifetime

Aladár Kolosy walked by his sister's side, following the familiar outlines of the embarkment. Twenty years separated the two Danube bridges beneath the Veil, and he felt that discrepancy more acutely than most. Breaches stood out against the shimmering background like black lacerations that allowed the reality of the Natives to seep into the Offcast Realm. Often, buildings and streets existed between the two worlds, sharing facades and fates. The cities beneath the Veil reflected their counterparts' outlines, but never remained entirely faithful to the originals. Baroque churches with their curled bell towers jutted up into the sky in the world of the Natives, while beneath the Veil black obelisks occupied their places, piercing the clouds like ash-stained talons. Aladár did not pay them much heed. They only served as signal towers for gliders and slippers navigating through the Veil.

Occasionally he stopped, listened to the rumbling of the river and stared at the jagged cliffs beneath the Citadel, seeking something fluid and strange that had not been there before. Hajnal watched him from the side. Aladár knew her as well as one would know a part of himself - she could surprise him, but never fool.

"Any success yet?" Hajnal asked. Aladár shook his head, turning to the brightly lit Elisabeth bridge.

"No. We can't rely on our enhancements here. All I see are disjointed pictures of the past. I can't connect them to the murders."

Plagued by frustration, Hajnal swore under her breath. He could not blame her: their enhancement revealed glimpses of events and emotions, never providing the recipient with enough context. It was a life of guessing and adjusting one's mind to the impossible. It was the life he hated, but had grown to accept over the years. The longer he lived, the better he understood his father's words: "Being a time-master means to die a thousand times. Being a Kolosy means to endure. We are cursed to watch too many lives fade in a single lifetime." And he did endure. He despised himself for that.

"Did you extract anything from your wife?" Hajnal resisted the urge to insult Lorei, and Aladár appreciated the effort. They traded meaningful glances.

"Lorei is many things, but not a reaper. I don't remember a night when she did not have a gathering. She could not have done it."

"Maybe. What about other Lascaris?" She crossed the road and descended the stairs beneath Elisabeth Bridge, her dark silhouette blending with the translucent cityscape. When Aladár hesitated to answer, Hajnal shot him an expectant look. He gave in with a deep sigh.

"I would discard Laurenția. She is crazy enough to start a war, but assassination is not something she would ever attempt. She would face her enemies with three glimmer-blades, two braceters and a dagger, rather than harbor intricate revenge plans." He paused. "Besides, you said that the autopsies revealed traces of complicated chemical potions in the bodies. Well, none of the Lascaris are chemists or biologists. Lorei is a physicist, Laurenția and Lenar are mathematicians."

"Lady Adeona?" Hajnal persisted.

"Lady Adeona might be the most dangerous person alive, but she can't avoid supervision ever since her expulsion from Romania. And neither can Lenar. Unlike Adeona's daughters, her son is a hermit. For all I know, he does not communicate much with other people."

Hajnal pressed her lips tightly together, then tapped his shoulder, as if to make sure he was still standing by her side.

"Whoever commits these crimes, Aladár, he knows exactly what he is doing. He is leaving the bodies for us to find them. Why would he do that? Because he wants us to find them, or because he doesn't care? Or because he knows the Veil can hide him from us? Or, perhaps, he wants the Alka Guard, the Spy Guild, and the Council to see us as incompetent twerps and take control over us. Over everything." She seized Aladár's shoulders and buried her intense stare in his eyes. "There is only one psychic Offcast who faced the Alka Guard and escaped with her life."

"The Byzantine Basilisk. I know." Aladár sighed. He knew where this was going. Somehow, he had never thought the name would cross his mind again. Leudora Galbur was one of those people whom he regarded as distant imploding stars: they shone brightly from afar, but burnt one to a crisp up close. Even her name sounded like deafening thunder to him.

"Why would you dismiss my suspicions?!" Hajnal placed her hands on her waist. "Isn't she a dangerous person? Besides, Leudora despises the military."

"Ferenc used to say that…" Aladár bit his tongue, feeling Hajnal's hazel eyes focused on his forehead. He dropped the topic, knowing Hajnal could not stand him mentioning his old friend's name.

"I have seen Leudora Galbur twice in my life," he said. "All I can tell you is that she is pretty and, very possibly, unhinged. I could not shake off the feeling that she saw right through me with those metallic eyes of hers."

"I guess you should expect someone who bested the Serpent to be strange in one way or another." Hajnal rubbed her forehead. "Aladár, we need to solve this. I hate it when your wife is right, but the gravity-switchers and their growing influence in the Council is dangerous. And these assassinations… Think of what matter-shifters, light-benders and gravity-switchers will do if they find out. They will blame us… With a Varga idiot on the Council representing us, there's nobody to take our side."

"I decided to stay out of politics long ago," he cut short, moving away from Hajnal. He was not going to change his mind. He knew what politics had done to his kin better than she did. His sister refused to acknowledge the obvious.

"War is upon us, Aladár. Varga will do nothing for our benefit. He may be a time-master, but he is useless and frightened. Laurenția is the only Psychic who is not paralyzed by fear. Even so… she's a Byzantine Blood - an energy-twister, not a time-master."

"Would you like to be on the Council?" he exclaimed, before letting a frightening realization make its way through the labyrinth of his thoughts. She would. Oh, she would.

"I must." She crossed her arms on her chest and headed towards the Taban park. She must have readied a whole speech for Aladár, considering his possible rebuttals. Hajnal was smart, but he was in no mood for a debate.

"Someone must protect our kin. Why can't that be me?" she asked. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was when he prepared to refute Hajnal's arguments that a shallow breath died in his throat. Something felt wrong.

Aladár did not know who was the first to spot a cloaked figure in the distance. Fear paralyzed his limbs, twisted his lungs, seized his mind and settled in his bone marrow. He smelled death – gravel and myrrh.

"A killer…" Aladár murmured, grabbing his sister's hand. Decisive and fast, she pulled him forward, towards the dark silhouette. They sprinted, flying over pedestrian passages and avoiding cars from beyond the Veil. Aladár breathed heavily, lagging behind Hajnal. His thoughts raced while he desperately tried to make sense of his premonitions: there should have been a reason why he kept seeing Elisabeth Bridge, a deserted park and a man with dusky skin, who smelled of decay.

"Another time-master!" Hajnal yelled. "He is distorting our visions."

Aladár swore under his breath. He leapt to the side, crossed the tramline and rushed into the park, almost bumping into Hajnal's back.

"By the Ancestors…" Hajnal seized his arm and froze in front of a large oak tree at the end of the lane.

A hooded man leaned over a linen sack, which had a motionless hand protruding from its opening. Aladár did not know if it was Hajnal's twisted expression, or the sight of those clammy fingers that troubled him more. Pictures of their gruesome futures flared up in his mind, forcing him to wince. As time-masters they could predict each other's moves, their inevitable clashes always resulting in battles of stealth and endurance. Aladár was good at neither. Even Hajnal's concealed glimmer-blade could not improve his chances.

Ignorant of the corpse beneath his feet, the assassin attacked Aladár with a rear hook, almost knocking him down. Hajnal hit him with a long oak branch, giving Aladár time to roll away. He sprang back to his feet feeling a dull pain in the elbow. The man's lips formed a satisfied grin.

"I see you are not fast." He was not. It took Aladár only a second to get staggered by a sudden blow from the side. He retreated, noticing the glimmer-blade in the man's hand and the braceters on his wrists. Solid, beautifully crafted weapons of death.

Their identical enhancement allowed them to dodge each other's assaults, prolonging the deadly dance. It could last until one of them dropped dead. Hajnal knew it as well as he did. Yet, she persisted, her own glimmer-blade desperately slicing the air, sending sparks of light into the night. Hajnal's voice trembled when she shouted, "Why are you doing this?! You are working with the Alka Guard, aren't you? How much did the Alkari pay you?"

Aladár seized the hilt of her dagger and pushed her away, barely escaping a blow himself. The flashes of futures blinded him, and he acted upon instinct: he brandished Hajnal's glimmer-blade to no avail, only keeping the killer at an arm's length. Hajnal prepared to lunge forward when he pulled at her quivering hand. They had to run. Now, while they still could. They had never fought before in their lives, and neither of them knew how to use glimmer-blades properly.

Aladár's shoulders heaved, his breath ragged with effort. Despite his attempts to gain control over his senses, his body refused to move. His legs no longer obeyed him, succumbing to fear. When the murderer shot at his sister, he swung the glimmer-blade and froze, startled by an unsettling vision. He saw himself in a pool of blood, dying under an oak tree. Then his face dissipated, revealing Hajnal's smile.

He had never been brave, and he would, perhaps, die strangled by fear. But Hajnal would live, become their new Councilor and represent their people. Perhaps, he did not have to rebut her arguments, after all. "Hajnal! Go!" he shouted, the enemy's shimmering blade hanging over his head. "Hajnal, run!"

He did not feel the damp earth beneath his body when he fell. He did not realize his sister had shoved him away. Aladár lifted his head from the ground and saw Hajnal stumble over a small rock. Her body twisted and spanned. Aladár's eyes widened at the sight of a bloody stain spreading over her beige jacket. With an expression of helpless shock, she spread her hands wide and squeezed out an apologetic smile. Then she landed beside him in a messy heap of bones and flesh, fragile and small as a delicate porcelain figurine. Aladár could not take his eyes off her face.

The killer towered over him, his glimmer-blade wet with Hajnal's blood, his boot kicking their useless weapon away. He could have murdered them both, but he did not.

"We both know the variables. I won't risk it with you," he said.

Aladár saw blood on his forehead, scratches beyond his dark eyes and a bruise on his square jaw. He lunged at the murderer, preparing to claw at his face, but the man avoided his disjoined attacks with terrifying ease. Aladár could not comprehend if it was fear, anger or shame that tormented him most. When Hajnal coughed, he rushed back to her, ignoring the murderer.

"It has to be you then…" she whispered. Aladár cradled her head in his clammy hands.

"You can't die," he said. His voice was calm and melodic, unaffected by despair.

"It's not just the two of us. There is someone else. Our father has a secret."

What did she mean? He leaned over her, cupping her head with one hand and searching for a light projector with the other. He could still call for help.

"You must sit on the Council," she slurred with increasing difficulty.

"Hajnalka…"

"You must!" He saw a plea in her big hazel eyes. Was the assassin going to escape, leaving him there with two dead people? None of that mattered. A solitary tear ran down his cheek. Hajnal's face had never seemed so calm to him before.

Hajnal Kolossy passed away as a pale moon rose over the Buda castle. Startled by a rustling of fallen leaves, Aladár tilted his head to see a man standing ten leaps away from him. A tall silhouette in burgundy red vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Aladár realized the ghost may have scared the assassin away. He then stared at the field in disbelief, blaming his sick mind for causing hallucinations. A clear metallic smell hung in the air.