Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) (39 page)

“Because they are your parents,” he balked, taking a step back to really get a look at her. “Maybe not the king. He might be a royal arse to the core, but he raised you from the day you were born as his own and that in itself has to stand for something.”

“He never made me feel like I was his own.”

“Hey.” Finn reached out, fingers ducking beneath her chin to lift her face so she had no choice but to look at him. She hadn’t even realized she’d gone sulky until he touched her. Something tight inside her instantly loosened. Her shoulders relaxed, and for a few seconds she just stared into those incredible, wintry eyes of his. “He let you live, for whatever reason, even knowing where you’d come from. Were it not for that kindness, you and I wouldn’t be standing here right now and none of this would matter in the least. But he did and here we are and it does matter. And even though every part of me doubts we will get any help here whatsoever, tomorrow morning we will sit down with this seer and make him tell us everything he knows before we march off to do what it is we’re supposed to do.”

She didn’t know how he did it, especially considering how often he himself was the source of her disparagement, but he always seemed to know exactly how to make her feel like everything would be okay.

Lifting her hand, she curled her fingers around the thickness of his wrist and just held his hand where it was for a moment. “Thank you, Finn.”

“For what?”

For everything
, she thought,
for just being you, even though you make me want to scream and tear my hair out
. “Thank you for coming with me on this fool’s errand, for always being here for me.”

“Well, yeah,” he said, as though it should have been obvious, “of course. Now, I hate to say it, but I think the mage is right. We should all try to get some sleep. I’m starving though.”

“Mhm.” There wasn’t time earlier to think about how tired she was, or how much the journey to Nua Duaan took out of her. The emptiness in her stomach had abated for a while, but his mention of it seemed to make it known again. It churned and ached emptily inside her.

“I think there’s still some food in my pack.”

“In mine too.”

“It’ll be something to sleep in a real bed for a change.”

They’d been housed in separate rooms, each of them given their own bed to sleep in, and the thought of a night without his body close to hers stirred apprehension inside her. She didn’t protest though; she knew it was difficult for him to be near her sometimes, knowing he couldn’t touch her the way he wanted to, so she withdrew from his touch, let her own arm drop at her side and nodded.

“It will be a nice change.”

She didn’t want to sleep in that real bed alone. On the other hand, she knew she couldn’t keep asking him to sleep with her without it giving him the wrong idea. To make matters even more complicated, how long before she wasn’t able to fight off her own urges to reach out to him, turn his body into hers in a way there was no turning back from? No, she couldn’t do that to him. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair.

“If you need me, I’m right across the hall.”

“Goodnight, Finn.”

After he’d gone, and she was alone, she stood staring at the elegant four poster bed against the far wall. Gauzy curtains draped from the frame, hanging around the broad mattress. It seemed too large, so empty. She had no idea how she would ever fall asleep in it alone. She wasn’t used to sleeping alone, having spent most of her life curled up in bed beside her little sister, sharing their warmth and whispering secrets through the long hours of the night.

Thoughts of Mirien intensified the loneliness she felt in Finn’s absence. She was on her mind all the time, Lorelei worrying she might never see her little sister again, never hear her laughter or feel her arms around her in that comforting way she was so prone to sharing. Growing up, Mirien was really all she had. Mirien and Pahjah. Their mother never paid them more mind than she needed to. The king was always too busy to be bothered with their childish needs. That was what nursery maids were for, and in that respect Pahjah did her best to fill the void of both parents.

Homesickness for a home she could never call her own was only half the battle. More than anything, she just wanted to see her sister again, to know she was all right, to tell her she still loved her more than anyone else in the world.

She hadn’t noticed the tears in her eyes until she blinked. Spilling down her cheeks in abrupt, warm streams, she lifted a quick hand to brush them away, sniffling and refusing to let another tear fall.

Finn promised that one day he would help her get back to her sister, no matter the cost. She was going to hold him to that, even if the two of them died trying to get back to Rivenn.

She only hoped neither of them died before they even got the chance to try.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

He hadn’t wanted her to come along, but after she insisted there was a foolish part of him that thrilled at the notion of Showing Frigga through the Edgelands. As if he were sharing some special piece of himself with her, a part of him only she knew existed, but the devastation suffered by the land sprawling before them was nothing short of his worst nightmare. Her father fled with her when she was still too young to remember a land hard won by the sacrifice of proud men—men like his father.

He’d never felt sicker in his life than he did as they led their weary horse through the despair.

Gone, as if those lands had never even been there at all. The trees were little more than smoldering stumps and charred stalks that threatened to drift away, the once-green grasses burnt to ash that disintegrated and drifted like black motes upon the wind.

Exhaustion coupled with defeat sunk Vilnjar’s shoulders, and the heaviness of the air made it difficult for either of them to breathe. They’d torn strips of cloth from one of the blankets in their pack and tied them over their mouths to filter some of the ash and smoke from their lungs, but it was still the only thing he could taste in his mouth.

Nearly all the water from the stream was polluted with its taint, making their stomachs feel sour and their throats parched with every drink.

Through the night they’d ridden, fast and hard at first, until they could no longer hear the marching of King Aelfric’s army, or the laying to waste of the land at their backs. Skirting the edges of the traveling fires, they did not slow until they reached the upper Edgelands, of which little remained save for dwindling smoke and ruin as far as the eye could see.

The once proud trees separating the Edgelands from Aelfric’s kingdom clung to the desperate grey horizon like the charred, clenching bones of broken hands and the thick cloak of smoke clinging to the air burned their eyes until they itched and teared. His lashes felt sticky, thick and dirty as the world wavered in front of them like a sickening mirage on a hot summer day.

Memories of his childhood were nothing compared to the destruction before them. During the attacks on their settlements, the king’s army burned only the towns, leaving enough screaming survivors behind to put out the fires before they could spread to the trees. Enough people to spread word to anyone who might doubt Aelfric’s power. The destruction before them was devastating, the hungry flames having devoured everything in sight and not a living soul remained behind to tell the tale.

Beyond the still smoldering trees he saw further east than he’d ever seen from the confines of the Edgelands in his twenty-eight years. A beautiful, green land twirling gold, copper and ruby leaves, as if in mockery of the dark smudge of land no longer habitable enough to call home. How had they stopped the fires from spilling into Aelfric’s lands? It was a strange thing, the way they just stopped at the boundary, almost as if some foul magic contained them.

His heart ached inside his chest, and it took every ounce of strength in his bones to keep moving past the desolation of Breken and on toward Drekne. He was filled with such dread, at times he wondered if that made it harder for him to breathe than the ash-thick air. The ghastly remains of Breken still sizzled under the sporadic rain spitting at them as they walked through the wreckage. Frigga gasped and turned her scarf-covered face into his shoulder when they began spotting the burnt and twisted bodies of unsuspecting men, women and children who’d died in their homes and in the streets, some of them trying desperately to flee the flames.

The only part of the small village untouched by fire was the emptied grain pillar, towering like a giant over the remains of the mill the people there once used to grind their harvest into flour. Its window hung open like a gaping, empty mouth, catching on the slow breeze and squeaking on rusty hinges. It was a ghastly image, one he couldn’t get out of his mind even long after they passed through the town that no longer was.

He led them into the destruction slowly, though the greater part of him wanted to climb aback and ride swiftly away, never looking back. There was a nagging feeling inside that they should make for Great Sontok and flee into Rimian so they could ride for Dunvarak with warning, but he knew they would never make it past the king’s men.

They might very well never see Dunvarak again.

The trepidation slowing his steps was in part due to the heartache awaiting him a day and half’s ride north. He already knew what awaited them in Drekne, and coupled with the ever-decreasing likelihood of finding his sister, dread churned in his guts as he imagined the still smoking skeletal remains of the quaint and beautiful village he’d called home most of his life.

What kind of monsters could commit such wretched atrocities against the innocent?

“Men,” Frigga choked behind her scarf, as if in answer to his thought.

And though he knew their own fathers were once capable men who made their livelihood wreaking havoc on the surrounding countryside, he did not further upset her by pointing out the awful truth.

Their people, the U’lfer, settled; they changed, and most of those who survived the War of Silence had little, if anything at all, to do with the grievances between King Aelfric and their people. Their lives were as close to peaceful as the oppressed could endure without shackles, a peace his father paid for with his blood. Now the children of all who’d sacrificed themselves for peace were gone. The U’lfer would be no more.

The once casually overgrown road between Drekne and Breken was cleared by the march of ten thousand feet heading south, the dust of their passage barely settled.

Drizzling drops of rain pelted their ash-smudged faces, dripping clean streaks through the soot and rolling thick black droplets onto their filthy cloaks. Frigga’s wide eyes continually surveyed the desolation, always on the lookout for signs of life, but Vilnjar could look no more. He wanted to close his eyes and unsee the desolation, to throw himself down and yield to cries of rage.

Only hatred could produce such destruction. The self-righteous cruelty that allowed one man to claim superiority over another made his empty stomach roil and churn acidically inside him.

He’d gone back and forth in search of blame all morning, laying the fault at Lorelei’s feet more often than not. Had she never come onto their lands, had his brother not found her and brought her back to Drekne how different would things be? The U’lfer would still live their peaceful lie; they would eke out a meager living until one by one they were no more. Lorelei brought darkness with her, and in her wake followed the ash of despair.

Frigga clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and scowled at him for ignoring the bigger picture. Yes, it was tragic. In no way would she claim otherwise, but there was still hope. There was always hope.

He wished he could believe in her optimism, but optimism had never been his strong suit. Perhaps that was why they were so perfect for one another. She brought balance to him, filling him with hope where he’d never find it on his own, making him feel strong when all he wanted to do was give up.

“How many days has it been since the Light of Madra left for Great Sorrow’s Peak?”

Vilnjar couldn’t remember anymore. Time itself felt so strange, the moments dragging on for hours, or passing by so quickly he could barely grasp them.

“Ten days,” he said, then added, “I think.”

“Maybe twelve,” she proffered. “Do you think they’ve reached the mountain yet?”

He glanced up and saw her gaze turned eastward, her pale eyes staring toward the distant edge of mountains rolling ever eastward through Leithe and did not peak until they reached the northernmost edge of the land.

“It’s impossible to say,” he answered.

“Do you think I will feel it?” she asked. “When she takes back the Horns of Llorveth?”

The people of Dunvarak believed reclaiming Llorveth’s Horns would wake their wolves, and who was he to argue the likelihood? In the last couple weeks he’d certainly seen stranger things, heard far more unbelievable stories.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe you will.”

He couldn’t guess what would really happen when Lorelei and his brother retrieved the lost horns of a god Vilnjar never believed more strongly in his life had turned his back on his people. How could Llorveth stand aside and simply watch as the last of his people were ground into ash and dust?

“Llorveth has not abandoned us,” she said.

But his hopelessness in the face of newfound awareness startled him more than ever before.

They truly were the last, that handful of survivors who’d managed to escape the destruction and make their way south, his sister, wherever she was, his brother traveling north.

Already, they’d been so few, and now… Now there were less than a handful of full-blooded U’lfer left in the world. The wolves who once wandered would soon be no more, for how could a ragged band of half-bloods who couldn’t even embrace their beast spirits stand against five thousand soldiers who’d been given free rein to destroy them. Even the memory of U’lfer would be wiped clean from the world.