Decisions, p.4
Decisions, page 4
It was impossible to see them from where they were standing. The river passed beneath a grove of low-hanging willow, tangling their branches, before curving out of sight. But they could hear them clearly enough. At night, it was the only sound that could reach them from so deep in the forest. A deafening crash, and a churning rumble. They’d listened to it for hours, staring up at the constellations, closing their eyes at the slightest movement and pretending to be asleep.
“So what shall we do?” Jesse asked softly. “Head back to camp?”
There was so much to do, it seemed a laughable question with an obvious reply. There were people chasing them. There were people expecting them. There were people lighting candles in a thousand houses all over the realm, waiting for those ravens to swoop out of the sky. An obvious reply, yet from the moment the friends had stepped out of the valley, the world had suspended for them. Time did not exist in the little clearing; there was just the next moment, and the one after that.
It was quiet a few seconds as the group tracked a pair of cormorants, gliding low over the water. Every so often, their wings would tangle—the tips of their feathers splashing into the waves.
“No, I think not.” Eden gazed past the river, towards the evergreen mountains and into the sun swept distance beyond. “I think perhaps today, we head on.”
The others glanced over in surprise, staring at the back of his head.
“Are you sure?” Evander asked, sounding worried. If he wasn’t sure of the fae’s inevitable reaction, he would have simply tucked him somewhere to recuperate, and then handled their ludicrous postal disaster in Wren all by himself. “We can take a few more days, Eden. There’s no hurry.”
There’s a bit of a hurry.
“We can take a few more days,” Kiera echoed without thinking, warming with reassurance as the fae met her eyes. “We can take all the time you need.”
Jesse winced apologetically behind her. “We should probably get moving.”
The others made similar gestures of violence, but the fae met his eyes with a grin.
“It’s a seven-day hike,” he answered, “mostly over these mountains. When we get to that outcropping”—he pointed into the distance—“we’ll have to climb down and follow the river east. A seven-day hike...” he repeated under his breath, testing the fledgling strength in his legs. His face went still for a moment, then cracked into a mischievous smile. “We’ll do it in three.”
WE’LL DO IT IN SEVEN.
The friends broke camp that very day, gathering whatever meager supplies they’d brought from the valley, before marching into the woods. They’d actually managed to accumulate several new items in the days they’d spend idling in the clearing. Pots and bowls had been carved from pieces of driftwood, then scorched and hollowed over the fire. The mortals had walked the riverside for hours, gathering herbs for Eden’s tonics and pieces of flint. It was a lot to carry, and they’d left their satchels in the castle of the late-Tezerin chief. They tried for a while to improvise, stuffing their pockets and lashing things to their cloaks. Then short of any better idea, they ended up leaving more than half of what they’d made in a helpful pile beside the river—a windfall, to help the next traveler.
It turned out for the best. The journey was hard enough as it was.
The fae might have set his eyes on the horizon and declared himself cured, but it would take more than a fit of enthusiasm to carry him across the woodland range. By the end of the first hour, he was panting. When they stopped for lunch, he sank down in the shade of a dogwood and made a silent vow to never leave. No sooner had the sun began lower, than Evander declared it was time to stop for the evening. He’d spotted another crop of imoneth in a ravine they’d crossed, and gathered them into a bouquet. The second they stopped moving, he pressed it into the fae’s hand.
“Just a little,” he warned, lowering him into a gentle recline. “The last thing we need is you declaring another holiday and bursting into song. Or hunting rabbits.”
“You’ve never appreciated my singing,” Eden replied, wincing as the vampire peeled back the fabric to check on his bandages. “Nor did you believe me the other day, when I told you about the hare. I’m starting to think your heart’s not really in this, mios.”
The others laughed in spite of themselves, exchanging a quick look.
Right, of course. The vampire is indifferent, at best.
“You told me the creature was judging you,” Evander remembered suddenly, glancing up to look at him. “And you were apparently sober. Have you any wish to explain that?”
“How do you mean?”
There was a pause.
“...it was judging you?”
“Oh, Evander!” The fae threw back his head with a burst of sparkling laughter, filling the clearing with the happy sound. “I can tell you have not spent much time speaking to rabbits.”
The vampire stared at him, then pointed to the flowers. “Again.”
“You should have let me take some of those,” Jesse murmured, watching as his girlfriend methodically emptied her pockets of a dozen pieces of flint. They had become something of an obsession, as she’d paced beside the river. While they couldn’t possibly find a use for so many, there was always an eager market in the village stalls. “It’s not like I’ve got anything else to carry.”
Most days, the shifter was laden down with more than his share. In addition to hauling his portion of their supplies, he’d vowed to carry his girlfriend’s book collection as well. Across the realm and back again, he’d lugged the histories in his satchel. But those bags had been left in the valley, along with their map and their compass, and there was no recovering them. It was an ache that seemed easy compared to the rest of it. But it was an ache nonetheless.
“I don’t mind,” Kiera answered flippantly, arranging them meticulously by size as she laid them across a flat rock. “And the irony just kills me.” She glanced over in the silence that followed, catching his questioning gaze. “That out of everyone, I’d be the one carrying the flint?”
The girl who needs no help starting fires.
He froze a second, then forced a quick smile.
“We’re laughing about that now?” he asked cautiously, measuring her expression. Since that first day in the river, he’d been taking cues from her, presenting as whatever she happened to need in that particular moment. There hadn’t been much laughter. They’d taken to screaming instead.
“Oh, I think we might as well,” she murmured, continuing her line-up with a consuming focus. In a moment of distraction, she sliced her finger on a jagged piece—wiping the subsequent blood smear on the rock. “You remember them. Gods know, they were found of laughing.”
He stared a moment longer, but words failed him. In the end, he merely nodded in silence, easing his fingers into her pockets and helping to unload the rest of the stone.
On the other side of the clearing, things weren’t going much better.
“—of course you’re not lying,” Eden was saying, the imoneth dangling from his hand. “I’m only saying, it doesn’t affect me as much as you claim. My people have strong constitutions, and aren’t as addled by such things. I have also been taking much less...” He trailed into silence, lifting his eyes to the sky. He stared for a moment, utterly spellbound. “There is something wrong with the moon...” he murmured to himself, before whitening in sudden terror, “...it is burning!”
Evander let out a quiet sigh. “That is the sun, my love.”
The fae jumped in surprise as the blossoms were taken from his hand, looking at Evander like he hadn’t realized there was anyone else in the forest. His eyes swept over the vampire’s face, before travelling down the length of his arm, to the hand resting on his own knee. He tilted his head with a frown, like he couldn’t remember what it was doing there. “...where are my pants?”
Jesse laughed under his breath, his eyes flicking back to Kiera.
“We have no need for gods or dragons,” he murmured, “the two of you scare me enough. I have no doubt we’ll make it to Wren. But there’s no telling what message we’ll give the ravens when we get there. All things considered, we might end up doing more harm, than good.”
Stranded beneath a blood-moon: flint, but no pants. Send help.
The fae noticed him a second later, lifting his hand with a radiant smile.
“Jesse,” he called, waving enthusiastically. “I haven’t seen you in months!”
The shifter grinned in earnest, crossing the length of the clearing and kneeling to the ground at his side. “Has it been that long?” he quipped. “It seems like just moments ago.”
Eden flashed a bracing look over his shoulder, lowering his voice conspiratorially so the vampire wouldn’t hear. “He took my pants.”
Evander’s eyes snapped shut, as Jesse smiled again.
“You’ve let him do that many times before,” he reasoned, giving the fae a reassuring squeeze and settling beside him. His eyes lifted to the mountains, following the trail that had been pointed out before. “A few days through the peaks, then we climb down and follow the river.” A quiet breath caught in his chest, and he nodded a little—glad to be moving once again. “Wren cannot be much further than that. If we keep a steady pace, we could be there by the start of the new week.”
And then...?
It had been enough to merely set their eyes on the tower. They could not yet consider what might happen when they arrived. Perhaps they would find the city overrun with enemy soldiers; a torrent of clans and warlords still heading towards the Tezerin Valley, having not yet heard about the deadly blaze. Perhaps the streets would be filled with immortal archers—warriors who served under Eden’s father, heading them off at the pass. There was no way of knowing, and given the list of things they were leaving behind them, it had seemed better not to get ahead of themselves.
Jesse stared a moment, then cast a look at the fae. “Have you thought about it yet? The message you might give the ravens?”
Eden shook his head, lovely as a sunrise. “We should set them all free.”
Chapter 4
The sky was almost painfully bright when the friends set off the next morning, feeling like for the first time since venturing into the Tezerin valley, they were finally back on their feet.
At a slightly slower pace than usual, they cut through the forest, until it thinned and bulked, and narrowed into something resembling a road. This, they avoided. But it was easy terrain, and they kept it in distance; falling quite naturally into old rhythms. The leagues slipped by in relative silence as they listened to the sounds of the forest. When the sun rose high enough, they stopped for lunch, fresh berries and meadow greens. The fae swore he was fit to continue, and they hiked a gentle slope through the thickening forest. The air was damp with spray from the river. It smelled of wet pine.
This feels good.
Kiera stunned herself by thinking it, catching the toe of her boot.
Perhaps not good exactly, but normal. It was starting to feel like they’d turned a corner. It was starting to feel like they’d found their old trail. Which, of course, was absurd. How did one walk away from something like what happened in the valley? How did one cook breakfast the next day?
And where is the guilt? Over five thousand men. Am I heartless?
She cast a swift look at the heavens, glad when the clouds started rolling in.
Over five thousand...I don’t even bother counting anymore.
They hiked a ways longer, winding along the alpine ridges, enough time for the bright afternoon to cool into milder weather. There was still sunlight, but it came in patches, constantly interrupted by the thick clouds drifting overhead. For a while, they thought it might rain, a prospect that set the vampire scowling, but not a single drop fell from the sky.
“What do you think’s going to happen to her?” Kiera asked abruptly, bringing an end to the long silence. They had been wading through a grove of mountain acacia, nothing but the occasional swish of a branch as they passed by. The men glanced over their shoulders. “Jazper.”
In the days since they’d left the valley, no one had spoken the girl’s name. Yet it had never been very far from Kiera’s thoughts. Sometimes, she put that flawless face in her mind when she screamed beneath the water. The dragon fire had spread to every soldier in the warlord’s army.
It never reached the palace.
“We just left her in that castle,” she continued, feeling strange and hollow. “She can’t be any older than ten.” There was an ache in her chest, a kind of pressure, like she was trapped beneath someone’s boot. “What do you think’s going to happen to her? Now that she’s all alone.”
The men froze in various places around her, unsure what to say.
By some unspoken rule, none of them had talked much about their brief imprisonment with the Tezerin. She’d seen them all thinking about it; the sudden clenching of fingers, the sudden stilling of the face. But for whatever reason, they had kept silent.
At least, they’ve kept silent around me.
“She’s not alone,” Eden said quietly, “there is a host of servants and guards who reside in the palace. Whether their master lives or not, they are tasked with protecting her. Although, I doubt she’ll need them,” he added, flashing a quick look at the vampire.
Evander nodded in silence. “She won’t,” he said simply, keeping his eyes on the trail. “Do not be fooled by her age,” he added, throwing Kiera an unexpected look. “I promise, she can take care of herself.”
I don’t doubt it.
Despite the choking grief that rose every time she pictured that immaculate face, never once had Kiera worried about the girl’s safety. She worried about other things. Too many, to count.
“I saw her dancing on the parapets when the soldiers were killing that bear,” she blurted, catching her breath like she’d just run a great ways. “Mierko said they went from village to village when they were younger, never allowed to settle. She never had a home.”
She paused a moment, piecing it together.
“I guess he built her one.”
If the men had faltered at mention of the child, they stopped cold at the warlord’s name. No matter how much time had passed, they were still carrying the marks of his hospitality. Scars that had yet to settle, bruises that had yet to fade. Some hurts had cut deeper than the others.
Eden threw a silent glance at Evander.
The last time Mierko had been breathing, all three of them had been together. The vampire was holding him steady as the fae picked up that great sword and carved out his heart.
“I guess he did,” Jesse said quietly, his eyes catching onto hers.
There hadn’t been a moment since the valley he hadn’t been watching. At every step, at every turning point, he’d done whatever was necessary to ensure he was standing alongside.
“Do you believe what Mierko said,” he asked quietly, flashing a look at the immortals, “that we are not the only ones making envoys?” If his girlfriend had said the name, he was determined to say it himself. Every step, together. “Do you really think Sorne is trying to...to recruit?”
His voice twisted at the word, and the fae turned to him with something close to pity.
It was a good mind that could not immediately comprehend the evil before it. He would not change such a perspective, not for all the gold and silver in the world.
“I do not think the packs would waver, Jesse.”
“I spoke not of the packs,” the wolf replied a bit sharply. “His first attempt at an army was destroyed.” He threw an apologetic look at Kiera, making sure this was all right. “It would stand to reason he’d wish to replenish those ranks. Where else will he find his soldiers? He already sent for the mercenaries and warlords. I would have thought everyone in the valley was at the top of his list.”
It was an angle Kiera had yet to consider, one that made her shudder right down to her boots. A hundred faces went through her mind. A thousand. She’d stood beside them in the camp, sat across from them at dinner. A thousand faces, she couldn’t imagine anything worse.
The immortals shared a wry look, like he’d said something very young.
“Oh, there are lots of creatures still to try,” Eden said lightly, only the glint in his eyes giving it away. “Sorne doesn’t need trained soldiers to fight in his army, only the ravening need to destroy.”
...to destroy?
Kiera flashed a quick look at him, studying his profile. “But Sorne wishes to rule. Why would he...?”
She trailed off, understanding at the same time. In order to rule, the god would need to build himself a kingdom. At present, there was a certain group of immortals standing in the way.
“You heard what the god offered,” Eden said softly, turning his eyes to the peaks, “he wishes to exterminate my people, wipe us from the face of the earth. I think he’s been waiting a long time for that to happen,” he added thoughtfully. “When the trees themselves were only seeds.”
A dreadful silence followed his words, making the others suddenly cold.
“But that’s impossible,” Jesse reasoned. “You are an entire race of people, better organized and protected than anything else in the realm. It is impossible, to erase that away.”
Eden gave him a dry smile. “Is it?” he asked, quoting their benefactor. “My great kingdom—free of the fae. It looks like he already found a willing audience. I have no doubt, he will find many more.”
“But who would help him?” Kiera insisted, unable to believe it. He’d promised those men power and dominion, but they were ruled by greed and already driven by such things. “He catered to a fringe group, and they are gone. What kind of normal people—”
She caught herself again, at the look on Eden’s face.
You aren’t talking about people.
