Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) (15 page)

She hadn’t taken Brendolowyn for a braggart when she first met him, but something about the way Finn seemed to challenge the half-elf certainly brought it out in him. Like two boys in a pissing contest, they argued constantly about things neither of them actually even cared about just for the sake of argument, and it was driving her mad.

If they were vying to impress her, both of them were falling short of their mark, she thought, rolling her eyes and releasing a silver-puffed sigh of annoyance.

“I do not need to see to know we are on the right path.” Bren’s voice was muffled by the scarf wrapped around his face, and little more than the tip of his nose stuck out from the shadow of his hood.

Finn cleared his throat on her left. He looked little more than a massive fur beast enshrouded in heavy fog beside her, his horse struggling to keep its footing while bearing his heavy weight across the slick ice.

“I travel this road at least once each year.”

She looked curiously toward him, wondering what purpose such a journey served in the past, but he didn’t offer further explanation and she didn’t press the matter. Maybe he kept in contact with the Alvarii people hidden below Port Felar, she thought, or maybe he went on trading expeditions to the port.

Drawing back on the reins, her horse dug heavy shoes into the ice. Still studying the sky, she guessed it was only midday; there were at least a few hours of daylight left, but the thought of getting out of the cold, of stripping off her ice-heavy cloak and letting it thaw and dry beside the fire started to win out. Maybe a fire would melt icy tempers as well, and she could have some much desired peace.

“We will make camp then,” she decided, tugging back on the horse’s reins and listening to its hoofs skid as it tried to stop. It regained its footing, tramping down hard on the ice and jolting her to a halt that thrust her forward.

Finn coughed beside her, a rattling in his chest that echoed through the winded silence. She wondered if he was getting sick, then thought it was a wonder they weren’t all sick from the damp and cold. He slid down off his horse with a heavy thud, steadied himself and approached with careful steps on her right side. He held hands out to help her down and she gripped them in her own. She felt the tight muscles of her thighs, aching from days of riding, tremble in protest with the movement as she brought her leg up and slid down in front of him. Unsteady as she found her footing, her leather boots slipped on the ice, but Finn dug his hard fingers into the fleshy part of her upper arm and held her against his chest to keep her upright.

She looked up at him; his eyes were glassy and red-rimmed with exhaustion caused by more than just rigorous travel.

He’d confided in her while they sat by the fire two nights earlier, telling her just how difficult it was becoming for him to hold back the beast that wanted desperately to tear through his skin. He was used to running and hunting with his sister, Ruwena, embracing the beast to keep it sated so it didn’t overrun him, but it more than a week passed since he’d transformed and the wolf was itchy and restless beneath his skin. He didn’t have to say it again, but she knew her nearness was part of the problem; its want for her was driving the beast to madness.

She felt the beast, saw it always lingering and visible in the depths of his pale eyes if she stared too long. It seemed especially riled when the trolls came out at night to stomp and rage beyond Bren’s barrier, even more so when she was curled up beneath the blanket with him by the fire, resting her head against his arm. A part of her felt reassured in knowing even if the trolls did manage to break through the barrier, the wolf would tear them to pieces before they ever came near her, but his denial of its release made him short-tempered and impatient and at times she was actually a little afraid of him.

She didn’t tell him as much. Part of her worried it would break his heart to know she was scared of him.

He snapped intolerably at Brendolowyn every chance he got, and sometimes ignored her entirely when she tried to make pleasant conversation with him. The happy-go-lucky young man she grew fonder of each day slipped further and further away from the surface, and it would only be a matter of time before he was gone entirely if he did not allow the beast inside him to run and hunt.

Was that how the entire village of Drekne was all the time? Lingering at the edge of madness because they denied their beasts in accordance with the Edgelands Proclamation King Aelfric imposed upon them at the end of the War of Silence? Vilnjar didn’t seem crazy when she first met him, a little stiff and edgy, but Rhiorna was another story entirely, and the Council of the Nine… Thinking about the one called Cobin still gave her the shivers.

Finn’s hand lingered on her arm, grip softening as she withdrew and took unsteady steps across the ice to survey the place Brendolowyn was scanning to make camp. She drew both of their horses with her, some part of her foolishly hoping if she did slip and fall, she could grab onto one of them to pull herself back up. Shameful, she knew, but it was better than cracking her skull on the hard ground.

Bren didn’t seem to have near as much difficulty navigating the ice, his steps careful, but graceful, as if he walked on solid, steady ground. Not once had she seen his foot so much as twitch with the threat of giving way; it made her a little jealous.

“How long before sunset, Elf?”

Brendolowyn reached for the tethers as she approached, knotting all three horses together and draping the leather reins over a low-hanging, branch coated in a glassy layer. Hood half-lowered around the tangled braids of his golden-brown hair, he looked past her to where Finn stood. His lavender eyes burned bitter with resentment over the derision in Finn’s tone, but his voice did not betray his annoyance. “Less than an hour.”

“I don’t need an hour.”

Finn lifted a hand to unbutton the knotted toggle holding his cloak together beneath his chin. The scruffy beard he shaved away at the bathhouse in Dunvarak grew back, coarse black hairs covered his neck, chin and cheeks, only adding to the savagery of his appearance, and though that part of him terrified her beyond belief, it intrigued her as well. There was something deliciously manly about Finn, fierce and masculine and so enticing she bit her lower lip to keep from thinking about him in ways she didn’t have time to indulge.

“Help the princess set up camp and hold off on raising your barrier.”

“Hold off?” Brendolowyn sneered. “Whatever for? The surrounding area will be crawling with trolls the minute the sun disappears from the sky, and we’re nearing the coast. There’s no telling what other enemies might wait in the darkness.”

“I’ll be back before the sun goes down.” There was an edge to his tone almost daring Brendolowyn to challenge him. When no one spoke, he drew off his cloak and handed it over to Lorelei with silent pleading. “I need to hunt.”

He didn’t have to say anymore.

“Be careful,” she whispered, taking the cloak and folding its wet and heavy weight over the crook of her arm.

“Always.”

The look he gave her denied that promise, and without another word he turned his back toward them and headed off into the mists. She watched after him until he was little more than a ghost in the fog, and then turned around to help Bren set up camp. They worked silently together, raising the tents first. By the time they finished thin daggers of ice dripped from the corners of both tents that would trickle away once the heat of their fire was trapped inside the barrier.

“The U’lfer has well-earned the name his people gave him,” Brendolowyn muttered, hunkering down to start a fire. “He’s going to get himself killed out there, or worse, get us killed.”

“We can’t understand what it’s like for him,” she defended, and went to work setting up their tents. “I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to battle with himself the way he does.”

“Well, perhaps this little hunt will at least improve his mood,” Bren said, arranging the wood and kindling. “I don’t know how much more of his bad attitude I can suffer.”

“He
has
been antsy,” she agreed, drawing her arms up and crossing them over her chest. “To always hear the wolf inside, to be at its constant whim… What do you think that’s like?”

“We will know soon enough, I suppose.”

“I suppose we will.”

She thought about it almost as much as she dwelt on Llorveth’s silence. What it would be like when their wolf spirits were free, when she could actually feel it swelling within her and longing to run wild. For the moment, it was little more than a calling somewhere deep inside her, like a voice on a distant mountain caught in echoes through the valley below, its words distorted and strange and senseless.

“Sometimes I feel it in him,” she went on. “Lingering beneath the surface like… I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s as terrifying as it is comforting.”

“You share a bond with him then?”

He did not look up at her when he asked this, but she swore there was an underlying tone of curious jealousy in his voice. Or maybe she was just imagining it, leftover guilt from the dream she had her first morning in Dunvarak. A dream of a tawny wolf chasing her through the woods, playfully rolling with her and filling her mind with its thoughts.

We were made for each other, two halves of the same whole. We could be soul mates, Lorelei.

She watched as he drew upon the elements around them until a spiraling ball of fire grew in the palm of his hand. Such raw power harnessed, she thought, such an intimate connection to the elements—to the world around him. He directed it into the kindling, sparks leaping and dancing as it ignited dangerously and lapped at the open air like hungry tongues, the fire spreading fast as trails of greying smoke drifted toward the sky.

“I am his mate,” she finally answered. “I feel a lot of things when I am near him.”

“You are only his mate if you choose him,” he tried to sound casual in his observation, but she could hear the derision in his voice. “Your mother’s blood dulls the call of the soul’s mate upon yours. You should be free to choose from among your suitors, free to love whomever you wish.”

If her mother’s blood dulled the call of Finn’s soul, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what the nearness of a full-fledged U’lfer mate would feel like, how it must torment Finn to be so close to her and not be able to touch her the way he wanted to. She remembered how desperate he’d seemed the night before they departed, the fire in his eyes and the growl of his voice as he said, “
You are mine.
”

“The seer says I will choose him.”

“The seer also said you were meant to awaken the Tid Ormen,” he pointed out, pushing out of his crouch. Even without the barrier up, she could feel its warmth spreading through the air toward her, feel it melting away the chill sinking down deep into her bones. “In doing so, you will be forced to break from predetermined past-life choices. Has it never occurred to you maybe you will choose not to mate with the U’lfer?”

There was no malice in his question, only curiosity quirked his brow into a sharp angle above his eye when she turned back over her shoulder to look at him. “No,” she lied. “It has not ever occurred to me. In fact, I try not to think about it very much at all when there are far more important concerns than the flutters of my heart. I do think it would be a cruel thing to deny their bond, to force him to a life of solitude and longing.”

“Perhaps,” he shrugged. “But anything could happen.”

Yovenna’s words echoed in her memory. A journey three would depart for, but only two would return from… The mere thought of Finn not returning with them from their task made something inside of her feel hollow and scared. She felt the same jolt of sorrow at the thought of losing Bren. He was still a mystery in so many ways, not as open as Finn, or as bold in the voicing of his thoughts, but that intrigued her more than she would ever let on.

“I know,” she lamented. “If waking the Tid Ormen means changing something, I would keep all three of us alive through this task. Return to Dunvarak together and see the seer’s prophecy shattered by our survival.”

He seemed to swallow, the sharpness of his Adam’s apple rising and falling beneath his scarf. “I will do my part to see the prophecy undone,” but there was a lack of certainty in that promise and it lingered in the silence between them long after they finished setting up camp.

Lorelei found dried vegetables in her pack and wilting herbs to make a soup. She trekked away from their boundary and filled their pot with snow to melt over the fire. She had to walk several feet away to find a patch that wasn’t frozen solid and then she had to break it with her fist before scooping it into the pot. The sound of fluttering wings brought Hrafn swooping into their camp. He perched atop Bren’s tent and crawked at her as she returned to the fire and hunkered down to set the pot over the flames and watch it melt.

“Hrafn says you should let me do the cooking tonight.” Brendolowyn reached down between them for the herb pouches and tugged the leather strings open to dip his fingers inside.

A slow smile began to form at the edges of her lips. “My cooking isn’t that bad, Bird.”

Bren laughed as Hrafn screeched and chittered. He grabbed a pinch of herb and sprinkled it over the melting snow. “It isn’t that it’s bad, my lady, but it’s…” he paused, regarding her playfully, “well, I wouldn’t exactly say that it’s good either.” The bird crowed in agreement, the sound echoing through the fog.

Brendolowyn ducked to the side when she raised a threatening fist and shook it at him, both of them laughing.

“I have never done anything like this in my life,” she confessed as she drew back. “I’ve never had to do anything for myself before. Even when I was in Trystay’s camp, his people waited on me hand and foot. Sometimes it makes me worry that what Finn says about me is true.”

“And what would that be?”

“He thinks I’m a spoiled princess who doesn’t know how to look after herself.”

“If it’s any consolation, my lady, I’d say you’re doing a fine job so far, but if I might, doesn’t it seem odd this Trystay held you in such high regard, considering he was planning to kill you?”