Into the Wind (5 page)

Owyn! You promised we’d spend our lives together. You weren’t supposed to leave me. What will I do without you?

His only answer was the screams of his people as the humans chased them toward the water.

“Go!” Owyn’s voice said in his grief-bewildered mind. “You must lead them to safety. You must live so that they can live.”

He bent over Owyn’s lifeless body and pressed his lips against Owyn’s. Already they felt cold to the touch.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. He would leave Owyn here. There would be no burial. Owyn’s ashes would not rise to the goddess on the wind.

Once again, the scene faded. He now sat by a dying fire in a small dwelling near the water, the sound of the surf against the rocks a reassuring melody that eased his restless mind. His body ached and he felt as though he’d never be warm again. Even the transformations did little now to renew his ancient body. Death was close, but ever elusive.

How many times had he prayed for the goddess to release him to rejoin his beloved Owyn in death?
How much longer will you test me?

The fire crackled and an especially powerful wave broke nearby. He could almost hear Owyn’s sighs in the sounds, feel his longing. Owyn’s calls to him became stronger each day, and each day he imagined Owyn saying, “Just a bit more time, and we’ll be together again.”

For years now Treande hadn’t cried, although the grief in his heart had only grown deeper with time. For the first time since Owyn’s death, he felt tears burn his eyes and fall over his cheeks.
It’s too much. I can’t go on!

“Owyn!” he cried. “Owyn!”

“O
WYN
!” T
AREN
sat up, momentarily unsure where he was. He reached up to clasp the black stone that hung around his neck only to realize it wasn’t there. Tears rolled over his cheeks as he shivered.

“I’m here.” Ian’s voice brought Taren back to himself. He encircled Taren’s waist with strong arms and gathered him into a loving embrace. “Another dream?”

Taren nodded.

“What about?”

Taren wasn’t sure he wanted to. “I…,” he began.

“You can tell me.” Ian pressed his cheek against Taren’s shoulder and kissed the skin there.

Taren nodded.

“I wish you’d speak to me about it.” Ian kissed his cheek and sighed.

“There isn’t much to tell.”

“Please.” Ian brushed a lock of hair from Taren’s eyes and met his gaze. “Tell me. Did you dream of the rune stone again?”

“Aye.” Taren took a long breath to steady himself. “I was wearing the stone. You—Owyn was long dead.” Once again he’d been alone in the dream. The emptiness he’d felt at Owyn’s absence had been all consuming. Why were all his recent visions from the time after he’d lost Owyn at the temple? He longed for the memories of the happier times they’d spent together—the memories that had sustained him when he’d been a prisoner on Ea’nu.

Ian brushed Taren’s tears away. “I’m here. I’m not leaving you. Not this time.”

Not if you can help it.
Taren knew that. But he also knew that should the goddess will it, as she’d done before, Ian would leave him alone. He sighed and shuddered.

“Tell me, Taren. Please.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” Taren settled into Ian’s arms as they lay back down on the bed. “I dreamed of the stone. Of leaving the island for the last time. I knew I’d never return.” He’d been old. Not frail, but his body had ceased to heal as quickly, and he knew death would take him soon. He’d wanted to die. Death meant that he’d rejoin Owyn in the afterlife. An end to his lonely existence.

Ian held him tighter. Taren found it easier to forget the memory of that vast emptiness when Ian held him. Easier, but he still could not forget it completely. What if they were doomed to repeat the past?

“It won’t be the same this time,” Ian said, as if he could read Taren’s thoughts.

Taren prayed Ian was right.

Three

T
AREN
KNELT
by the ruins of the temple, as he had each day for the past three months. He wasn’t sure why he kept coming back. “You’re searching for something,” Ian had told him as they’d worked to rebuild the foundation of the cottage on the bluff. “A heading in the storm. It’s only natural to ask for the goddess’s guidance.”

Taren told himself he didn’t need the goddess or the gods to show him his purpose. He wasn’t even sure he believed they existed. And yet here he was, prostrate once again, imploring her for help. More than anything, in acknowledging that he’d lived another life as Treande, Taren feared he might somehow lose himself. And with that fear came restlessness. Questions.

“Back again?”

“Obviously.” Taren didn’t mean to snap at Vurin, but he tired of the man’s paternal manner and preternatural ability to sense when he was troubled. Why couldn’t Vurin have been a seer instead of an empath? At least then he might be of some use to Taren and could tell Taren what he should be doing instead of wasting his time here. But perhaps Vurin’s empathy was what made him such a powerful leader for the mainland Ea.

Vurin chuckled. “Not finding your answers?”

“If I’d found them, do you think I’d still be here?”

“Perhaps you aren’t asking the right questions.” Vurin bowed to the remnants of the ancient altar and pressed his palms together in supplication. “Or perhaps you aren’t listening to the answers.”

“Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me, then?” Taren turned to face Vurin. In the fading afternoon light, he looked far more ancient as shadows settled in the lines around his mouth and eyes.

Vurin sat on a rock and smiled. “You want to know who Treande was and how much of his soul still inhabits yours.”

“I….” As always, Vurin’s ability to know his thoughts disturbed Taren. “Yes. I want to understand why I keep dreaming of him. What purpose the dreams serve. What I’m supposed to learn from them.”

“No doubt you do.”

“Tell me more about him.” When Vurin regarded him with a knowing smile, Taren added, “Please. I need to understand.”

Vurin took a long breath, his eyes closing momentarily as if he were gathering his thoughts. “Walk with me,” Vurin said. “There’s something I’d like you to see.”

“All right.”

Vurin gestured to the road that led out of Callaecia. They walked for several minutes in silence, the only sound the screeching of gulls from the water and the rustling of the leaves in the breeze.

“You know that Treande led our people to Ea’nu,” Vurin said after a while. “He helped them settle the island colony and build the great temple there.”

“Aye.” Taren knew this much. In fact, when Vurin had offered to teach him about the Ea and their history, Taren had welcomed Vurin’s instruction. Now, however, he feared what Vurin might tell him and feared what the knowledge Vurin imparted might reveal.

“As children, we were taught that when the Ea arrived on the island, the volcano roared to life,” Vurin said as he rubbed his jaw and studied Taren with an unreadable expression. “Some say it was a dragon who coaxed it from its sleep. Legend has it Treande singlehandedly extinguished the flames and smoke.”

Taren laughed and bent down to retrieve a small rock from the road. He rolled it between his fingers, then tossed it onto the grass. “And you believe this? Have you ever seen a dragon?”

Vurin shrugged. “Before you met Ian and the others, had you ever seen merfolk? There are many stories of dragons. I hardly need to have met one to believe they may exist. There are stories of ancient magic far more powerful than what we mages now use. Stories of magic transcending time and death. Stories of flying ships and underground cities. There are also stories of Ea priests who could control the elements.

“So much of our magical skills have been lost with time,” Vurin continued. “The Council systematically killed those Ea with strong abilities, or put them on tight leashes and used them like dogs to help them repress the islanders.”

“You believe I’m a mage?” Taren asked.

“Yes.”

“But my abilities—”

“Are untested and unexplored.” Vurin breathed deeply, then said, “I believe the rune stone is the key.”

“To my abilities? Impossible.” In all of Taren’s dreams, Treande was merely the keeper of the stone, never its wielder, as Owyn had been. “Treande never mastered the stone. If he possessed such power, it was his own.”

“You know this?” Vurin’s eyes widened and he turned to face Taren.

“I….” Taren hesitated. “I hadn’t really thought about it until now. Still, I know it’s true. Treande could not wield it.”

Vurin raised an eyebrow, then motioned Taren onward.

“I suppose I didn’t
want
to think about it until now,” Taren admitted. He’d dreamed it, as he’d dreamed many things about his past. The dreams—memories—still weighed upon him.

Vurin clasped Taren’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “Sometimes the heart speaks for us.”

“I won’t lose him again, Vurin.” Taren clenched his jaw and tried yet again to banish the memory of Owyn’s death from his thoughts.

“You cannot live your life in fear, Taren. That’s no life at all.”

They walked to the edge of the clearing where the temple had once stood. From here, Taren could see the water shimmer in the harbor below. The
Phantom
’s masts looked like trees in the dead of winter—bare, yet proud.

“How did Treande die?” Taren asked after a moment. He was tired of fighting his fear. He needed to learn the truth, or as much truth as the stories held.

“We don’t know. There are writings from that time in the ancient tongue. They say only that the goddess led him home.”

“And the stone?”

Vurin raised an eyebrow. “Some say he entrusted it to a keeper. Others say it died with him.”

“What do you believe?”

“I believe the stone still exists. That you have dreamed of it is proof enough for me. Besides, as you’ve said, Treande was not a wielder. The stone may be hidden or lost, but it still exists somewhere. It did not die with him.”

“You believe we’re meant to find it again, don’t you?”

“Aye.” Vurin glanced toward the village, then back at Taren. “I believe you and Ian are meant to find it.”

“You want to use it—whatever power it holds—against the islanders?”

“No. I would never use such a thing against our own people,” Vurin said in a steely voice. “But the last of the ancient priestesses told me about the stone around the time you were born. She dreamed of it. She said it would be our people’s last defense. That it would protect us against powerful forces.”

“The humans?” Taren asked.

“Perhaps.” Vurin shook his head. “She told me little more than that.”

“And what of the Council? What of the rumors that Seria now speaks for them?” The thought of Seria controlling the Council made Taren shiver. He couldn’t escape the memory of his cruelty and of his power any more than he could forget the echo of pain and despair.

“I will not see our brethren harmed. Too many of us died when we fought each other two decades ago. Your parents were among them.”

“My parents.” Why had he hesitated to ask Vurin about them?

“I must admit that there are times I don’t understand you, Taren,” Vurin said with a wry smile. “Some empath I am.”

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what?” Vurin pointed to a path at the edge of the cliff, and they began to descend. “Of the pain of their loss?”

“Aye.” There was little point in denying it—he knew it to be true.

“There is pain in loss,” Vurin agreed. “But there is joy in understanding, as well.” Taren inhaled deeply in an effort to dispel the grief he felt at never having known his parents. “They were good people. They loved you very much. Enough to want to keep you safe from harm at the cost of their own lives.”

“You were the one who hid my true nature, weren’t you?” Taren asked. He had guessed this long before but had never found an opportunity to ask.

“Aye.”

“Ian told me of the prophecy. That the stone is our people’s salvation.”

Vurin nodded. “The old priestess, Zea, spoke of it often. She told me her mother knew Treande and Owyn. She said you would grow to be a powerful mage. She told me to protect you.”

“Protect me how?”

“She didn’t say.” Vurin studied him as if he knew what Taren might say next.

“You… guessed?” Taren wasn’t sure why this disturbed him. What if there had been another way? What if he’d grown up with others of his kind?

“I could have been wrong,” Vurin admitted, likely sensing Taren’s questions.

“They died protecting me, didn’t they?”

“Best I can tell, yes. After they left Callaecia with you, they were never heard from again. Except for the rumor of a mermaid found dead by the harbor, I know nothing of how they perished.”

Taren rubbed his mouth. Sometimes he wondered whether Ian was right—that the goddess planned something different for him in this life—or whether he and Ian were fated to relive the pain of the past as some sort of penance for failing to protect their people.

They reached the bottom of the cliff a moment later. The sun made the surface of the water glitter, and the sound of the waves crashing over the rocks made Taren long to transform. He closed his eyes and inhaled the salty air. He imagined the wind working its fingers through his hair, brushing his skin, helping him to forget his fear.