Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) (30 page)

Yovenna told him not to blame himself, but he knew for a fact the forking of that time line was a direct result of his selfishness.

From the corner of his eye he watched her draw her legs up close to her body and wrap her arms just below her knees. She tilted her head to rest atop them and stared into the flames. Absently chewing her bottom lip, she sighed several times, occasionally looking back over her shoulder in the direction Finn went when he stormed off.

Bren hated that she wanted to go to him, hated even more that he’d promised to stand back and let what was supposed to happen between her and her mate happen. Despite how easily the younger man annoyed him, he didn’t hate Finn, but that didn’t mean Bren thought the arrogant bastard deserved to spend his life with Lorelei.

He was loud and crass, obnoxious and rude, and Lorelei spent more time not talking to Finn than she did actually talking to him. How could the world-design intend for two people to spend their existence together if they could hardly stand to breathe the same air half the time?

They were so different from one another, and though Yovenna tried to explain to him at least half a hundred times over the years that such opposites provided a necessary balance to the natural order of things, that didn’t mean he had to like it. They were two parts of the same soul, their differences, when combined, would make them a whole being. Without Finn, she would never be complete.

On the other hand, he wasn’t so sure he deserved her any more than Finn did. The part of him who admired the idea of her from afar still lingered beneath the surface, and it grew stronger with each passing day, but as he came to know her he began to understand he’d been in love with an idea, not a woman. He’d grown infatuated with a memory he was never meant to have, and the greatest part of him didn’t understand why she’d even given him those memories if they weren’t meant to guide him to her in the end.

The more time he spent with her, the better he came to know her. He grew to love the young woman she was, not just the entity she would become, the spirit that saved him so he could be a part of her cycle. The mere sound of her laughter was like music to his ears; her smile was more powerful than the light of a thousand suns. Just being near her was enough to make him feel content, but he couldn’t let her see that, not ever.

He’d promised Yovenna he would do the right thing, no matter how difficult it was—even if the right thing meant saying words to her he didn’t quite believe himself.

A lump rose into his throat, tightening the cavity and making it difficult for him to swallow. It was even harder to find his voice, but after several tough gulps he finally said, “He means well.”

A long, silent moment passed before she blinked and glanced in his direction as if she couldn’t believe he’d just said those words.

“Finn, I mean. It was wrong of me to argue with your mate. He only wishes you to be ready for what lies ahead. To face it all without fear.”

“He’s not my mate,” she countered. “Not yet, anyway.”

“No, he is not yet, but he will be when you are ready to accept him.” How painful it was to say those words to her. Had he said them to her before, in other instances of the moment they relived time after time? “It has been seen.”

“I still don’t understand why it’s even important who I choose to… mate with.” The last two words she spoke were difficult for her to say, uncomfortable in her mouth and jumbled when she finally managed them. “What does it even have to do with anything in the grand scheme of things?”

“Perhaps it is more important than you could possibly begin to imagine.”

“Hmm,” she mused thoughtfully, her gaze still resting on the fire. “Somehow I find that hard to believe.”

“There are volumes of tales in the Lyceum of Dunvarak, chronicled histories of the U’lfer Yovenna brought with her from the Isle of Dorayne. I’ve read them all many times, know the stories of our people quite well. Llorveth was a great romantic.”

She tilted her head toward him, the fire’s light catching in the coppery strands of her hair.

“His love for Brisvyn and the bond they shared before she betrayed him was so powerful he longed for his children to experience such love. As they made the first U’lfer together, he took a piece from his own heart and one from Brisvyn and molded them together. Then he broke those combined pieces in half and placed them inside mated pairs. He set their spirits free into the world and watched as they made efforts to find one another again. Not unlike the Eternal Hunt, if you will.”

“That seems cruel.”

“Perhaps,” he nodded agreement. “But maybe we do not understand because we are not wolves, not wholly. The Hunt is inside us, but it is stifled. The U’lfer are not born with two spirits, as many assume. Each wolf is born with only half a spirit inside him, and he spends the sum of his days searching for the other part of himself so he might become whole again, much like Brisvyn’s pursuit of the Great Stag.”

“But we are not U’lfer, as you said,” she pointed out. “What of our hearts? Our souls? Is part of us missing?”

“I do not know the answer to that questions, Lorelei. We are half-blooded. Born of wolves who never found the other part of their souls. There are some who believe we are the children of Llorveth and Madra. That before Brisvyn betrayed Llorveth, there were no half-bloods in this world. Perhaps Llorveth realized such bonds were not practical,” he shrugged. “Or maybe it’s something else entirely.”

“But if we are bonded to a wolf…” Shaking her head, he could see the confusion in her eyes, which stared dumbfounded into the fire as she spoke. “If I am Finn’s mate and he is mine, why don’t I feel things with the same intensity he does? Why do I have a choice, but he doesn’t?”

“It would be silly of me to speculate, as I don’t have a clear answer, but for the sake of the conversation I can’t help but wonder if the bond
is
equally strong, but because you are unable to embrace the wolf within, you do not feel it with the same strength he does.”

“Maybe.”

“I know he is not the easiest person to get along with,” he confessed, “but in the end he is your mate.”

“I know.” There was a hint of lament in her voice. “I just wish it was clearer. He feels everything so deeply, and sometimes I feel it too, but… I don’t know. And when you say it like that, it makes it sound like I have a choice in the matter, but if Llorveth chose our mates for us, there is no real choice at all.”

“Free will,” he grinned across the fire at her. “The oldest philosophical debate since the dawn of time. If we go against that which we believe the gods designed for us, how do we know our divergence wasn’t part of the original design?” Like the way he felt about her. How could he ever be sure she wasn’t part of his design? That they weren’t meant for one another? Yovenna said it was his fault the cycle continued, but what if that wasn’t true at all?

“I don’t know,” she shook her head. “I just…”

She never finished her thought. For a long time neither of them said anything, and he couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking. Did she ever think of him in ways she shouldn’t? Was he the cause of her doubts about Finn?

“You said Finn wants to prepare me,” she finally said. “What is it you would prepare me for?”

The future. The chance at a life his jealous love would deny her if he wasn’t careful. “What I want doesn’t matter.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know. I mean really, Bren, does any of this matter in the long run?” She held her arms out to encompass their camp, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if she meant their general surroundings or the overall journey.

“It all matters,” he insisted quietly, all the while resisting the urge to tell her wanting to know and needing to know were two separate things, and sometimes knowing meant unnecessary pain. He could not steer her from the path she was meant to travel, no matter how much he wanted her for himself. Knowing that was more painful than he could have ever imagined it being, and yet it was the one thing keeping him on the right path. “Every little detail matters, my lady. Every second, every minute, every hour. It’s all so very important. You can’t even begin to imagine.”

Lowering her head again, her loose auburn hair fell in around her face. “Maybe I’ll never understand.”

“Maybe you won’t. Look, Lorelei, all I want is to spare you from the suffering of ever having to take a life,” he confessed. “To stand in front of you all the way and ensure your slate remains clean, but I can’t do that and I know it. There are things that lie ahead of you, of all of us, things I may not even be there for, and you’re going to have to face them, whether
I
want you to or not. As much as I want to keep you from ever knowing a single moment’s pain, I know if I spare you from those things you will not become the woman you are supposed to be.”

She was contemplative for a long time, staring absently into the flames. Through the golden red curtain of her hair, he saw she was gnawing the dry skin of her lower lip. It was a habit he’d noticed she took to when she was nervous and afraid, which seemed to be nearly all the time since he’d met her.

“Finn…” he stopped, trying to frame his words carefully. “Finn just wants to prepare you for what’s waiting for you out there. He wants you to go into everything aware, so when the world starts throwing punches, you know to be on your guard. Me…” Pausing again, he turned his own gaze toward the fire and watched the white hot center of the flame lap with blue tongues as it climbed higher and leapt with orange-tipped, yellow fingers toward the night air. “I would spare you from all those things,” he said quietly. “Which means I would hold you back, instead of letting you fly. That is why what I want doesn’t matter, Lorelei. I would stop you from being the woman you are meant to be.”

“It seems he would hold me back in his own ways,” she grumbled. “Push me behind him and fight all my battles for me, rather than giving me a chance to fight them on my own. He seems to come out of nowhere if even the slightest breath of trouble comes too close to me.”

“That is not a bad thing, Lorelei.” As much as he hated to admit that, it was true. “Anyone who would throw himself into the line of fire to ensure you don’t get burned is definitely someone you want on your side.”

“I guess, but…”

“Just like me, he only wants to protect you, but he also wants to show you how to protect yourself. The parts of you I would protect will probably not save your life, but your spirit. Sometimes the breaking of our spirits is necessary so we can become who we are meant to be.”

“You are the last person I expected to champion his cause, especially considering everything you said to make him so mad in the first place.” At last she turned to look at him, her amber eyes like two precious stones glimmering gold in the light of the fire. “Together your counsels provide balance, and perhaps that is what I need most of all if I am to get us all through whatever waits out there.” She waved her hand beyond the barrier, into the dark shadows of the trees surrounding their camp.

“Perhaps,” he nodded agreement. For a long time neither of them said anything, as the words he knew he needed to say and the words he wanted to say battled inside him like a storm. Finally, he cleared his throat and swallowed hard against the bitterness he could feel rising there. “You should never go to bed angry with someone you love. Maybe you and Finn should try to work this out.”

“I don’t love…” she started to protest, his heart leaping with selfish joy. The protest never came, and she lowered her head in defeat. “You’re right. I should go talk to him.”

Looking down at his boot in front of him, Brendolowyn only nodded. He didn’t watch as she pushed herself to her feet, but when she walked by him on her way to chase down Finn, she paused and lowered a hand to his shoulder.

“Thank you, Bren, for being honest with me.” She squeezed gently, and though he never wanted her to lift her hand away from him, she did too quickly. Not turning around, he listened to the sound of her footsteps as she made her way toward Finn—the one place in the world he couldn’t stop her from going no matter how much he wanted to.

He never felt lonelier in his life. Without even Hrafn to keep him company, he ached. The bond he felt with his raven went deeper than any other bond he’d ever known—even the bond he felt with Lorelei, who could never even know there was a bond between them.

His hand absently fondled a pebble he’d picked up from under his leg, fingers stroking the rigid contours until he knew every inch of it as intimately as he knew himself. As a boy, his mother told him all things had a soul inside them, and through those souls everything was connected. Rocks and mountains, streams and oceans, even the smallest grain of sand was a part of the greater whole, but as he rolled the tip of his finger across the jagged edge of that stone in his hand, he felt nothing but the absorbed warmth of his own hand.

Tossing the stone toward the barrier’s edge, he watched it ricochet off the invisible wall and tumble into the grass on the other side of his own tent. Maybe it was him who had no soul, he thought, but then that wouldn’t explain the depth of emotional turmoil that troubled him since the day he’d washed up on the beach, nor the overwhelming heartache weighing him down every time he looked into her eyes. The worst part was, he knew it wasn’t true. In order to wield magic, one needed a soul.

You are doing the right thing
.

Yovenna seemed to always be with him since her spirit left her body, a constant conscience, a whisper of strength when he felt most conflicted.

“It doesn’t feel right,” he muttered, resting his chin on his shoulder and staring out through barrier into the shadows of the fir trees surrounding their camp. “It feels awful,” he said. “Like every part of me is breaking.”

Sometimes we must break before we can mend.

He had to resist the urge to shout protest, to insist he didn’t want to break or mend, he just wanted the life in those flashing visions the Light of Madra should never have shared with him. Countless times he asked himself why, why did she spare him if she knew how much denying his love for her would destroy him?