Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) (33 page)

“Come here,” he held his arm up, and she scooted underneath it, nestling her body close to his beside the fire, and for a long time they sat that way, enjoying the perfect silence of each other’s company.

The tiny fingers squeezing his felt slippery with sweat, and the way they trembled made it feel as if her grip was slipping from his. He squeezed harder, yanking her forward until she stumbled behind him, her bare knees scraping through the dirt. She was still wearing her nightgown, the braids of her black hair disheveled from sleep. The patterns where the pillow pressed into her cheeks hadn’t even begun to fade.

“Come on, Rue!” he roared desperately over his shoulder, his voice echoing through the crackling hiss and roar of fire burning all around them. Just over his sister’s left shoulder, Vilnjar watched the blazing tavern collapse in upon itself in an explosion of sparks and embers. The rumbling of the earth as it fell startled her into action, and the clear passages marking her soot-smudged cheeks glistened in the orange glow of destruction.

For a moment he’d almost forgotten she was just a little girl; it was his job to protect her.

Deken distinctly assigned the task to him, clapping a heavy hand down on his son’s shoulder before lowering to look the boy in the eyes. “You must see to them while I’m gone, Vilnjar,” his father said. “Look after little Rue, and your mother. Protect them. While I am gone, you will be the man of the family.”

“But Father,” he protested, trying to squirm out from under the hard clasp of fingers digging into his shoulders, “I’m not yet a man.”

“A boy becomes a man the moment he knows he has no choice, Vilnjar.” Deken’s eyes were harsh as ice, cold and calculating, as though he’d been preparing to destroy his son’s childhood since the moment he’d been wrenched screaming from his mother’s womb and into the world. “You have no choice, my boy.” Something softened in his father’s face then, a hint of tenderness unlike any Vilnjar had ever seen, and then he smiled and said, “You will make me proud. I know you will.”

“Vilnjar,” the scuff of her whisper edged at his unconscious being, drawing him from the depths of sleep so quickly he would have bolted upright had it not been for the pressure of her body weighing down on him.

It was dark, the night around them black as pitch, and for a moment he didn’t know where he was. Was he a boy, hidden amongst the trees with his little sister cradled safe in his arms? He listened for the sound of Rue’s hitching sobs, rising with every sleeping breath, but instead he only heard the racing pulse of another’s heartbeat. Frigga’s heartbeat.

The tremulous fear thundering through her battled with the strangled puffs of her stifled breath, which she fought desperately to keep quiet. Why was so it dark? What happened to their fire?

The smoke of an abruptly extinguished fire choked his senses and instantly burned his eyes. Beyond that, he smelled only their horse at first, and then the distant odor of a thousand equine beasts carrying the smoke-dusted soldiers who’d burned the Edgelands to the ground. Rising through the acrid smell was the fresh scent of new fire, wood smoke, burning pine sap making his eyes itch and water.

“I heard them coming from more than a mile off, felt the ground shaking like a great earthquake,” she muttered breathlessly, “so I made my way through the trees to see what I could see.”

He jolted upward, cradling her body against his and straining his ears. The sound was coming from miles away, but it rang clear through the silent night. Bootsteps, hoof-fall, an army marching southward with determination and purpose.

“Are you mad?” he hissed, the tips of his fingers curling almost harshly into the flesh of her arms. “If they saw you… You could have been…”

“No one saw me,” she insisted, writhing painfully against his bruising grip. “But I saw them. Thousands of soldiers marching toward the mountains, toward Rimian.”

His throat tightened anxiously. The dryness in his mouth coupled with the rising nausea clenching in his gut and made him feel sick. Loosening his fingers, he could feel the pain of them against her skin, and guilt mingled with the unspoken tremors of fear that gripped him.

“And fire, Vilnjar,” the whisper of her voice trembled with terror. “Fire as far as the eye could see, a great golden blaze on the road behind them.” She paused only to allow those words to sink in, and then she said aloud to ensure he understood, “They are burning the woodlands as they go, throwing torches into the trees to burn out any survivors who might have escaped in hopes of heading south.”

The urgency surging through him was more intense than any he’d ever felt before. The horse on its tether restlessly scraped her hooves on the ground, pacing and snorting with untold fear.

“We must go.” He was already standing, Frigga rising with him. “Find a way through the fires in the north.”

Wordlessly, they packed up camp in the dark. They wouldn’t know until later whether or not they’d forgotten anything, but for the moment all that mattered was leaving that place before the coming flames blazed through the dry pines where they’d made their camp. It took every bit of Frigga’s stern gentleness to steady their mount so they could climb abreast and ride north. She nestled in tight at his back, and he steered their mount toward coming fires.

They road northward, far enough from the road so as not to be seen, but still close enough they could hear the thundering boots and hoofs of King Aelfric’s army laying waste to the Edgelands as they made their way south in search of Lorelei. They could see the distant silhouette of marching soldiers through the orange glow of the burning trees, cracking in great hefts as they crumbled and fell into one another, spreading the malevolent flame.

Lifting the stifling fur of his cloak over his face, Vilnjar drove the skittish mare northward, less than a mile from the flames consuming the only land he’d ever called home. The smoke was so thick it blotted out the sky, but through the blackness Vilnjar thought he could see the pale, silver light of Madra, the mother moon, shimmering like a beacon.

He followed that light in hopes it would see them to safety, and prayed silently to Llorveth that Logren and the people of Dunvarak were truly prepared for the storm heading their way.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Hrafn did not return the next day. Brendolowyn was awake and pacing the perimeter of their encampment at first light, but by mid-morning there was no sign of the raven at all. Finn tended to the horses while Lorelei sat near the fire sipping at bland, clumpy porridge and watching the half-elf wear out the ground beneath his boots.

Bren hadn’t lowered the barrier. They were too close to the city, and it wasn’t safe to expose themselves in broad daylight until they absolutely had to. Shrouded within the tall pines, they were far enough away from Port Felar to remain unseen, but the smoke of their fire would draw attention if allowed to climb skyward. The watch on the city walls might wave it off and excuse it as a miner’s camp, but it seemed foolish to take that chance. So the barrier remained in place, and would until Hrafn reappeared.

She didn’t mind the magical perimeter. She felt safe inside its confines, but she could tell it was making both of her companions stir-crazy, and for once it wasn’t just Finn.

City smells still permeated the air around them, mingling with the pungent sea. Apart from the distinct aroma of salt and fish, the familiarity of the nearby city made her feel homesick, not for the first time.

The odd thing about homesickness was it wasn’t Rivenn she longed for, but Dunvarak. Her brother and his little family, the safety and comfort of the community there. She still missed her sister and Pahjah, even her mother, but she’d never felt at home in Rivenn. Yovenna told her in one of their earliest meetings for the rest of her life, home would be wherever her heart was, and though her heart was firmly wrapped around both of the people she was with at the moment, it was also with her brother, her nephew Roggi, her sister-in-law Viina. She even missed Vilnjar, who she was quite sure hated her guts, and found herself imagining from time to time how he might react to some of the situations they’d gotten themselves in since they’d departed from Dunvarak to attend to what he firmly believed to be a fool’s errand.

Resting by the fire, she wished they were all there with her, but knew in her heart she would never wish the dangers she must face on anyone else she loved. It was bad enough she had to drag Finn and Brendolowyn with her, knowing one of them wasn’t supposed to come back.

It was an easy thing to say she wouldn’t let anything happen to either of them, but the keeping of that promise was impossible. Time was a fickle thing, and at some point along the way they were meant to alter it and change its outcome. They had no insight into the moment they were meant to change, but sometimes she got the odd feeling she’d been there before, spoken the same words in another life and time, walked the same road.

Déjà vu.

Pahjah told her when she was a girl the experience of déjà vu was proof from the gods there was a seer inside each and every man, woman and child on Vennakrand. That sometimes when those odd moments of clarity made themselves known, it was reassurance they were on the right path because the body, mind and spirit recognized a road it traveled once before.

As a young woman, she thought the recognition was symbolic.

Now she knew better.

And every time those familiar feelings washed over her, the hair on her arms tingled and rose, a series of strange shivers rolling the full length of her spine before crawling back toward her neck again and sneaking into her hair until the very roots tingled. Déjà vu was proof she’d been there before, lived through that moment already and vaguely remembered its significance.

Over her shoulder one of the horses huffed, the swishing of three tails announcing their discomfort with Finn’s care. Hooves scraped and dropped in tense warning, and when she glanced toward them she saw her own mount drew back its ears. Even after traveling so far together, the horses were still nervous around Finn, and didn’t like it when he tended to them. His own mount took the entire journey to begrudgingly accept the wolf on its back, but the gelding still didn’t like the U’lfer much—even though he was attentive and gentle with the beast. Trapped in so small a space with the wolf beneath his skin, they were clearly unnerved.

Rising from her place beside the fire, she left her half-empty bowl where sat and went to take over the task, insisting Finn eat something.

“Let me,” she said. Holding up both hands in concession, Finn backed away and she moved in to soothe them all with affectionate cooing and gentle scratches along their noses.

From the corner of her eye, she watched Bren continue to pace while she brushed them out. She began to wonder how much of the horses’ discomfort was direct result of the mage’s agitation. His nervous energy made her feel edgy too.

“You’ve got to try to relax, Bren,” Lorelei finally suggested. “We all need to relax until we actually know something. You’ve said before your connection to Hrafn is strong. You would know if something was amiss, wouldn’t you?”

At first Brendolowyn didn’t seem to hear her. She cleared her throat, rather loudly, drawing him from his tense reverie and registering her question in his mind.

“Yes,” he nodded. “It’s just an odd thing he hasn’t returned, is all. I’ve been to the city below countless times over the years. It never takes this long for them to acknowledge my approach and send one of their own to guide me. They almost always know I am coming.”

“They are probably expecting us.”

“Exactly,” he nodded. Tension twisted his mouth into a tight scowl, the expression wrought with worry as he pivoted and headed back in the direction he’d just come from. “They know we are coming, and should have sent someone to meet us on the road. It worries me they’ve kept us waiting this long.”

“They’ll come when they come.” Finn grabbed the bowl Lorelei used instead of dirtying another and ladled porridge from the pot before dropping into the dirt by the fire. A small cloud of dust stirred with his movement, and one of the horses sneezed out of spite.

But they didn’t come that afternoon, nor did they arrive in the evening. Brendolowyn’s nervousness began to spread like a plague, and Lorelei felt its tension tightening in her own stomach. She tried to distract herself by reading through the ancient Alvarii text Finn reminded her about the night before, but after reading the same convoluted and pretentious sentence no less than twelve times, she closed the book with a huff and stuffed it back into her pack. She barely slept that second night outside the gates of Port Felar, tossing and turning beside an equally agitated Finn. She was relatively sure Brendolowyn hadn’t slept at all.

By morning, everyone was on edge. Annoyed by the mage’s constant distress and pacing, Finn finally suggested, “Maybe one of us should have a look around the city.”

“Out of the question.” The words left Lorelei’s mouth before he’d even finish speaking, but when Brendolowyn lifted an eyebrow at Finn, she saw something she’d never thought to see: they were finally in agreement on something.

“Perhaps Finn is right,” Bren said without even the slightest hint of chagrin. “If…”

“If one of us goes, that means lowering the barrier. Finn is U’lfer. He is not supposed to be outside the Edgelands, so him going is out of the question.”

“Most humans can’t tell the difference,” Brendolowyn pointed out.

Ignoring him, she went on, “There is a strong possibility the king’s men will be on the lookout for me, specifically, so it’s not a good idea for me to attempt entering the city. If you go, that leaves the two of us here without the protection of the barrier or the aid of your magic if something does happen. Not to mention, you are an uncollared, half-blood Alvarii. If that doesn’t raise suspicion…”