Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) (34 page)

They both knew she was right, but neither of them wanted to accept it. The only thing Bren seemed to agree with was the risk for her and Finn was far greater than the risk for himself.

“I know this city,” he interjected. “I have been here before, made contacts within the walls that work hand and hand with the Underground Resistance. If something happened to Hrafn, they can at least carry word to the city below the city and announce that we are here and waiting to meet with their seer.”

“What if it’s a trap?” she asked. “Trystay claimed he was working with the Alvarii Underground the night I overheard him plotting to kill me.”

“Perhaps you misheard him,” he shrugged. “I know for a fact the Underground would never lower itself to conspire with their human oppressors. And besides, Yovenna would not have sent you to meet with Gwendoliir if she knew you would come to harm here. She would have seen it. You are far too important to put at risk…”

“This whole journey is one big risk,” she protested. “And I barely knew Yovenna, beyond a single afternoon in her company, during which she spoke volumes of madness about visitations from a future version of myself that drove her from the Isle of Dorayne, across Leithe and into the tundra, where she then proceeded to gather all that remained of a group of people I allegedly spared without reason while I allowed the rest of my father’s people to die out. I’ve centered so much of my present and future around her visions, but for all I know, she was making it up…”

“The city of Dunvarak itself is reason enough to prove her visions were not imagination.” Fierceness edged his tone, the light of conviction gleaming in his widened, lavender eyes. “She knew of you, Lorelei. She knew everything about you. You know that. She sent your brother to meet with you at Great Sontok on the very day you and the U’lfer arrived, and she knew things about both your past and your future no one else could know without keen sight.”

The ferocity of his defense animated him in a way she’d not yet seen. He wasn’t angry, but forceful in his conviction, and there was a fierce glimmer in his eye that frightened her a little. Generally, he was passive, reasonable, but for the briefest moment he reminded her of her brother, who was often so headstrong in his own opinions he refused to listen to anyone else’s reason if it conflicted with his own beliefs. She understood now why the two of them got on so well.

“I hate to say it, Princess, but the elf is right.” Finn shocked her once again by siding against her. “Yovenna’s visions have proved solid so far.”

“But there’s only so much the visions allow, and you both know it. She told us one of us wouldn’t come back from this journey, and I refuse to believe that. What if walking through the gates of Port Felar is the thing that makes it happen? Why would we risk it if we don’t have to?”

“It isn’t.” Brendolowyn’s certainty was more startling than the prior edge of his tone as he was preaching Yovenna’s worth as a seer. “All three of us will make it to Sorrow’s Peak, my lady. I can promise you that.”

“So, she told you things, then?” She tilted her head, both curious and disgruntled by the fact that he knew something of their journey she did not. “Things she did not share with me?”

“No, she did not. I came into awareness of certain matters on my own. There are things I know which I should not, and my knowledge of those things could put everything in jeopardy if I’m not very careful.”

“What kind of things?”

“I’m sorry, Lorelei, but I am not at liberty to say. By all rights, I should not know the things I do…”

“Then how did you come to learn them, if you were never meant to know them?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he insisted.

Before she could press him further, Finn surprised her once again by intervening on Brendolowyn’s behalf and steering the conversation back to the matter at hand. “He’s right, it doesn’t matter what we know or don’t know. All that matters is we keep moving forward, and we can’t move forward if we don’t make contact with this Alvarii seer she sent us to find.”

Feeling just about as sick of seers as one could possibly feel, she threw up her hands, startling Finn’s gelding so it backed up and gnashed its teeth in dramatic dismay. Instantly sorry, she reached out to soothe the horse again, lowering her forehead to rest against its neck and trying to calm both the gelding and herself.

“We don’t need any more seers,” she sighed.

“Lorelei, we don’t know what guardian hides in the bowels of Great Sorrow. It could be a dragon for all we know.” Tilting her head to look at Brendolowyn, she could see even he didn’t believe his own statement.

“Drakiiri are gone from this world,” she reminded him.

“What if there is one left? And that’s what guards this treasure hoard where the Horns of Llorveth are kept?”

“There are no dragons,” she insisted. “And besides, even if there were, and that was what awaited us there, what good does it do us to know about it beforehand anyway?”

“Um,” Finn held his bowl, suspended halfway to his lips. “I’d like to know.”

“As would I,” Bren agreed.

Exasperated, she withdrew from the gelding and took two steps back. Not facing them, she lowered her arms to her sides and shook her head. “So you’re willing to risk being discovered here, or worse, captured inside the city, just to find out something we all already know? Dragons are extinct.”

“Even so, there are worse things than Drakiiri in this world,” Bren pointed out. “Yovenna wouldn’t have told us to come to this place, to seek out the seer here if she didn’t think it was important to the outcome of our task.”

She spun around quickly, a startled gasp catching in the back of her throat.

While they were arguing, no one seemed to notice the small child who’d silently appeared just steps from their encampment. It was Lorelei who spotted him first, lingering on the other side of the barrier. He was Alvarii, maybe only nine or ten years old, and around his neck he wore a worn slave collar with a chipped, red moonstone in the setting. The bare skin of his chest and dirt-smudged face were covered in a primitive pattern of dots that trailed across both cheeks, as well as along the span of his shoulders. He had wide, wild eyes, brilliant in color and as vibrant as the blue-green waters of the sea. Charcoal darkened his lids, making those eyes so vivid and feral, she nearly let out of a scream.

Perched upon the boy’s tattooed shoulder was Hrafn, who crawked the moment she noticed him. Brendolowyn immediately spun around, and Lorelei watched the features of his face smooth at the sound.

The bird croaked again, his long-beaked head jerking upright as he squawked at his lifelong companion, and when he spoke, his voice was filled with an almost childlike excitement.

“Hrafn, I was so worried about you.” It took only two long strides to carry him to the edge of his own barrier, and when he reached it he knelt down so he was at eye-level with the messenger. Tilting his head to study the boy, he spoke to the bird, noting, “I see you’ve made a new friend in your travels.” Hrafn responded with a throaty purring sound. “Hello, little one. I am Brendolowyn.”

“The one who calls a storm of ravens,” the boy nodded. “My master knows you.”

“And what is your name?”

“Alanuuin,” he said. His small mouth twitched, but his expression wasn’t quite a smile. “I am the eyes of Gwendoliir, the seer in the city below the city. Through me, he sees you and knows you are who you claim to be.” His bright gaze flitted beyond Brendolowyn’s shoulder then, intense eyes staring into her as he said, “And she is the one they will call the Light of Madra.”

“I am Lorelei,” she said as she arrived at the mage’s back.

It bothered her sometimes that not a single person she’d met since her escape from Trystay’s plot seemed to want to call her by her name. Finn was always calling her Princess and most times Brendolowyn respectfully called her my lady. Even the people in Dunvarak rarely referred to her by name. All she wanted was to be herself. Lorelei. Plain and simple, but even she knew there hadn’t been anything plain or simple about her life since the day she happened upon Rhiorna in the market faire when she was seven.

And it didn’t seem likely her life would be plain or simple anytime soon, either.

Her gaze fixed on the collar around the boy’s neck, she arrived to stand beside Bren. “Yovenna the Voice sent me to meet with your seer. She said he could tell me more about the guardian of Great Sorrow’s Peak.”

“Yes,” Alanuuin nodded. “He knows of this guardian, and he has been expecting you. To reach him, we must travel many miles away from the city gates to enter the tunnels and backtrack into our city.”

“Tunnels?” She hadn’t forgotten the city was below the city, but she hadn’t given much thought to how they would reach that underground place until that moment.

“To access the city below the city, we must travel through the waste tunnels that flow beneath.”

“Waste tunnels?” she wrinkled her nose.

“Now’s not the time to get squeamish, Princess.” Finn stretched to his full height, as if bent on intimidating the boy who’d come to guide them. Alanuuin barely even acknowledged the broad-shouldered, giant behind her.

Lorelei ignored him, asking the boy, “When can we leave?”

“As soon as you are ready.”

Nodding, she turned to Bren and asked him to lower the barrier so their guide could rest while they packed up camp. He did as she asked, and though Hrafn immediately flew from the boy’s shoulder to reunite with his mage, Alanuuin did not step into the camp, nor did he sit down. He simply stood in the same place, waiting and watching with those large, intense eyes.

Lorelei could feel his stare on her as she flitted around the camp, helping Finn take their tents down, packing away pots and utensils.

The U’lfer edged into her from behind and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Do you trust this kid?”

“I don’t trust anyone anymore, but we don’t exactly have a choice, do we? The two of you are bent on talking with this seer…”

“I’m not bent on anything except both of us coming back alive.”

“All three of us, you mean.”

“Yeah, sure, all three of us. But maybe you’re right. Maybe we don’t have to meet with this seer. We could brave Sorrow’s Peak blind and probably have the same luck.”

“What about the dragon?” She widened her stare, her lashing sarcasm making him roll his eyes.

“I’m just saying, Princess.”

“We’ve already said we’ll go, and besides, there are things I never got to ask Yovenna before she died. Things about my path and what’s expected of me. Maybe this Gwendoliir will have answers she wasn’t able to provide.”

“I doubt it,” he shrugged. “I’m starting to think knowing everything before it happens takes the fun and adventure out of life.”

“That’s one opinion.” She turned back to the contents of her pack.

He grunted and backed away, seeing to his own pack. “All I’m saying is sometimes mistakes are meant to be made. Knowing what’s out there, maybe it’s helpful and maybe it’s not, but…”

“But what? Twenty minutes ago, you didn’t want to go blind into this, and now that I’ve accepted we should, you’ve changed your mind again. I swear, Finn, sometimes you just argue with me for the sake of argument alone. Can’t you just… I don’t know… make an effort to not contradict every single thing I say?”

Momentarily abashed, she turned over her shoulder to look at him. His full lips tightened into a scowl behind days of patchy beard growth that made him look so much older and more weathered than he actually was. Bowing in mockery, the last words he said before they set out were, “I am ever at your command, Highness.”

So much for giving up on the game, she thought. Nevertheless, she didn’t let his sarcasm get under her skin. She shoved past him and didn’t talk to him again for several hours.

They did not ride, but walked their horses. Finn led his gelding and her mare, while Bren took charge of his own black mare. It was a thoughtful thing, she realized. Finn always took on her part of the burden and left her almost entirely unencumbered. Maybe he thought she had enough weight to carry around, what with the whole world on her shoulders, and he wanted to alleviate as much of the load as possible.

She felt instantly guilty about their argument, but she didn’t say anything to him. One apologetic makeup with Finn per day was her unspoken limit. Surely he’d do something else to make her mad before day’s end, so she might as well save apologizing for a single conversation. Still, she stopped brooding about him and let her mind fill with all the questions she could ask the seer they were on their way to meet.

Would Gwendoliir have any answers for her at all, or would he simply fill her with more questions much like his predecessors? Rhiorna and Yovenna both pointed her in the right direction with little more than a nudge, but she was getting tired of just following the line of a seer’s finger toward the horizon. She wanted to feel a connection with her cause, to feel like she was doing it because she wanted to, not just because the seers told her to. She supposed somewhere deep inside her, in that dark place where her unawakened beast dwelt, waking her wolf was becoming important to her, but the greatest part of her was still so afraid.

She watched the walls of Port Felar rise on their right, looming over them even though it was still so far away. It blocked out the harbor for miles, but she could still hear the din of city voices mingling with the cry of scavenging gulls circling overhead. Eventually, those sounds faded, and the overwhelming city odors with them until she could scarcely smell their familiarity at all.

Their guide did not speak to him unless they asked him questions, and even then his answers were terse and unrevealing. Eventually she realized it was pointless to attempt speaking to him at all, so no one said anything.

It was late afternoon by the time she lifted her hand to her brow to study the sun’s position in the sky. She was nervous enough that she wasn’t hungry, even though she’d barely eaten half a bowl of watery porridge that morning. She refused Finn’s offer when he tried to share crumbles of cheese from their last wheel, but she had a feeling she was going to regret that long before they reached their destination. She was too nervous to eat, and though she knew it was foolish, she kept hoping the seer they were traveling to meet would be kind enough to offer them food and rest, as well as answers.