I turned, my brow furrowed, not sure who he could be talking about, but certainly not me.
“Barepost is safe.” Luthair drew our attention back to him. “It’s time to decide. Will it be you or Erik?”
“We’re leaving,” I said, a hand on the griffin’s back. “All of us.”
She opened her mouth and squawked at him, showing him the rows of teeth.
“You’re not.” There was no hint of doubt in his voice. He believed his control over us to be complete. “I don’t give you permission, and there is no other way off this island.” He didn’t know, then, that we’d already found the airship. That though it had been under guard and destroyed, we’d still found it and were working on fixing it even now, as he gloated, thinking we were stuck here at his mercy. “You have one hour to decide—you or Erik. I have a feeling I know what your answer will be.” He paused. “I’ll have Missus prepare your room.”
He turned and walked away.
I lunged, but Estrid caught my arm. “What is he talking about?”
“He’s talking about me marrying him. Either I marry him or he sentences Erik to life in the mines in Arun’s place.” I looked at Luthair’s retreating back, then again at Estrid. “I don’t see why you care. Either way, you’re free to go.”
She shoved me back.
The griffin turned her head to glare at Estrid.
“Don’t even think about it,” she growled at the griffin, who promptly sat and began scratching her own back with her beak.
“Traitor,” I grumbled.
“You don’t see why I care that one of my siblings could be lost to me forever? You don’t think this is a choice that you should have involved Erik and me in?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I took a step back. “We’re going to leave on the airship as soon as it’s ready to go.”
She ignored me. “First you go and accept this job against Erik’s wishes. Then you enter into a bargain with an elf who isn’t even there. And now I find out that this whole time, you’ve been bargaining with Luthair too.”
“I’m not—” I stopped and spun around, leaning against a wall to collect myself. She was always like this. She always had to have all the facts, to know exactly what was going on, to be in complete control. How could I convince her that everything I did, I did for them? For us? “We can’t stay here forever.” I turned back to her and lowered my voice. “We have to find a way out of here, a way home. All of us. No one is staying here.”
Estrid scoffed, but before she could say more, I turned to Beru, who had been staying out of the conversation. “What did you mean earlier? About the ur’gel looking for me? And why are you always staring at me?”
“Not at you, at the mark beside your eye.” He looked surprised but didn’t deny it. “You don’t know what it is?” he asked. “The star?”
“It’s a blessing from my ancestors,” I answered.
“Yes, in a way. It is said that when the Creator made the old gods—Time, Power, Earth, and Death—that he gave them the ability to create new gods in their image. Death and Power created Dag’draath, who very quickly became a blight upon this world. To combat him, Time and Earth sent us Onen Suun. The Creator, who saw the destruction that Dag’draath would wreak, blessed Onen Suun with a kiss on the temple, marking him forever as one of his own, as a creature of the Light who would have the power to defeat the Dark.”
Beru reached up and touched the mark. “The kiss took on the shape of a star and was to be passed on to all of his descendants. You, Frida Svand, are perhaps a Svand but only in name. You are Onen Suun’s only remaining heir.”
“That’s impossible.”
Beside me, Estrid stood stunned and silent, a rarity for her.
“There’s more. I was Onen Suun’s most trusted general.”
I laughed, but when no one else did, I stopped. “But that would make you hundreds of years old.”
“Just before the end of the Dark War, I’d been captured by Dag’draath, and when Onen Suun imprisoned Dag’draath’s men in the Barren Wastes, I was on the wrong side of the enchantment, doomed to spend eternity in the darkness. That is how I am still alive. But Aria is a dreamwalker.”
A dreamwalker? I looked at Estrid.
She didn’t look at me.
Did Erik know what that meant?
Beru continued without giving us a chance to ask questions. “She visited me in the Barren Wastes and pulled me from that place. And when she did, she made a crack in the prison walls.”
“The ur’gel,”
“Yes. They’re fleeing into the world with the darkness that seeps from the crack. The crack will continue to grow, and the creatures will only get worse—darker and more dangerous—until Dag’draath himself is unleashed once more upon Iynia.”
“How do we stop it?”
“You are the key,” he said. “As Onen Suun’s heir, you are the only one able to close the prison again. To fix the mistake that Aria and I made. To save the world.”
Chapter 22
I did not want to save the world.
That was not to say that I did not want the world to be saved, but I certainly did not want it to be my responsibility. I wanted to save myself and my siblings, get us off this blasted island, and go home.
I stared at Beru, studying his face. His 200-year-old face. There were no wrinkles, no grey strands of hair, nothing to indicate he was any older than maybe thirty. Nothing to indicate he had stood beside Onen Suun or faced down Dag’draath’s armies. Things that were—to me and nearly everyone else alive—mere stories, things that happened so long ago that they hardly seemed real anymore. It was ridiculous to think that I was somehow connected to those old stories. That I was some key to saving the world.
A blessing from my ancestors. A kiss from the Creator, a mark of Onen Suun. Perhaps one and the same, if Beru were to be believed. I wondered if my father knew about my mother’s heritage, that she was descended from gods. Was that how he’d known what the mark was, or was it a lucky guess? Did it have something to do with her departure, this connection to the gods and the growing darkness in the Barren Wastes?
I felt Estrid watching me before I even turned to look at her. She’d known my mother, remembered her better than I did.
“Was my mother marked? Did she have?” I waved a hand beside my eye.
Estrid shook her head. “That didn’t even show up until after she left.”
I was still thinking, trying to come up with questions to ask, when Aria appeared behind Beru. He turned and blinked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to fetch you.” Her face looked flushed like she’d run here. “We saw the ur’gel leave. The ship is ready. Arun wants to go before they come back.”
It seemed like a solid plan to me.
But Estrid grabbed my arm before I could follow Beru and Aria. “Erik will not go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You must know this. He won’t be on that ship when it takes off. Not unless Luthair releases him of his debt.”
“Not even Erik is that stubborn.” He had to know I wouldn’t leave him. He had to know I would give myself up for him, no matter what Beru said.
“He might have helped put that airship back together, but I never heard him agree to go. He owes Luthair—even if it was our fault—and he’s going to repay that debt. You don’t know him like I do.”
The words stung, especially considering what I’d learned today. That I was a Svand but only in name. Whether or not it was true, it made me feel even more distant from Erik and Estrid. I looked past Estrid to where Aria and Beru were waiting for us at the corner.
They thought I was supposed to save the world. Maybe Erik would believe it too. Maybe that would be enough to convince him to get onto the airship. There was an urgency to my desire to get out of Barepost that I hadn’t felt before, not truly. It was like our carefully constructed world was imploding, and I was ready to go along with the ridiculous lie if i
t got us away from here.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Estrid put a hand on my shoulder as if to comfort me.
I shook her off. “I know, I just—I think I can convince him. Just trust me, this once.”
Estrid looked taken aback, ready to argue again.
A small voice called out. “Frida.”
I turned.
Grissall stood a few yards away, the injured griffin at her side and a brown bag on her back. “I’m going with you. If that’s okay.”
Gerves stood beyond them, in the door to the pub.
“Yes. Yes, I mean . . .” I looked past her to Gerves.
He raised a hand in farewell and disappeared inside the pub.
“I mean, of course.” I waved her closer, and she shuffled forward shyly. I was glad she was there, but for purely selfish reasons. Glad that Estrid wouldn’t fight with me in front of her. Glad that I could use her as another excuse to get us out of Barepost.
The griffin trailed after her.
“You too?”
The animal nudged me with her feathered head.
I scratched behind its ears. Her wing still drooped. I studied it, trying to figure out what to do.
Estrid brought a length of rope. “Here. Bind the wing. She’ll climb up with us.”
The griffin sat still as I wrapped the rope around her, binding her injured wing to her body so that it wouldn’t drag along the ground or get caught up in her feet. When I was practically beneath her, she reached down and nipped at my hair. At first I was startled, but then I realized it was an affectionate gesture, maybe even teasing.
Done, I stepped back and surveyed my work. She nibbled at the rope, then stopped, seeming to declare it suitable, at least for now.
“You’ll need a name.”
She looked over at me. Her dark eyes reflected the morning sun that peeked through the clouds behind me. It looked like hundreds of stars sparkling against the night sky.
Look up, my star.
“Stiarna.” It was the Ahvoli word for star, and it seemed to fit her perfectly, just as it had once fit me.
“Frida!” Estrid shouted back to me. “Your hour is almost up. We don’t want someone to come looking for you. Let’s go.”
I patted Stiarna on the side. “Come on. We’re not done yet.”
Chapter 23
Estrid led the way back through Barepost, Stiarna and I bringing up the rear. We raced down alleyways and crept across intersections. The town was still reeling from the attack, and hardly anyone noticed us, even with a griffin trailing us. Many people were mourning, their wails shaking me to my core. Others were quietly cleaning or repairing doors or putting out smoldering fires. No one smiled or called to anyone else. It made me hate Luthair even more, that he was worried about himself and how to best control me at a time like this, when his people truly needed him.
In a way, though, I was glad for his selfishness, because it meant he wasn't out helping the townsfolk. Instead, he was squirreled away in his house on the ridge waiting for me. Which was just fine. He would be waiting a long time, and that way, he wouldn't see us leaving.
We were nearly to the gate when we paused to regroup.
“How do we do this?” Estrid asked.
I barely had time to appreciate that she was really asking me when Beru answered. “We take them by surprise. They’ve left the gate practically unguarded. The odds are in our favor.”
I was just considering the strangeness of that fact—that things were actually going our way—when a hand clapped down on my shoulder.
I whirled around and came face to face with Aysche, or the wraith that had once been her. She looked awful. The black kohl she used to line her eyes was smudged and streaked, looking more like war paint than a beauty tool. But it wasn’t just the kohl that coated her hands and face and pretty pink dress. The thick black liquid was familiar—ur’gel blood.
“Wow.” I looked her up and down as she’d done to me so many times before. How she still managed to look indignant was beyond me.
“Was this you?”
“What?”
“Was this you? Some petty, D’ahvol revenge plot?”
“Aysche?” Estrid appeared over my shoulder.
From beneath her skirts, Aysche drew a small knife. Most of the women in Barepost chose to carry them instead of real weapons that could actually be useful against a monster, so that wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was that she waved it in my face.
I didn’t even draw my blades. “You think that I brought ur’gel from the Blasted Lands and set them on Barepost to get back at you?” She and her uncle really were exactly alike, both of them thinking that the world revolved around them.
“Ur’gel?” I could tell that at first, she wanted to laugh, but then she saw the truth in what I said. That these hadn’t been ordinary Bruhier monsters. But there was no reasoning with her. She shook her head, as if shaking off the logic, and waved her knife at me again. “I’ll kill you for this.”
I didn’t think that was likely. She wanted to. That was obvious. She needed somewhere to place the blame that wasn’t on herself or on her uncle. But that knife and her wielding skills would do little against me. This was the girl who had hidden behind as many people as possible when the fight broke out on the Gem. Who had lashed out at me with words but never with fists. I realized then, for maybe the first time, that she was just a scared, weak little girl living in a dangerous place. The only way she knew how to protect herself was to climb on the shoulders of those she could manipulate. Anyone else, anyone who defied her, like me, scared her.
Estrid shrugged and turned back to Aria and Beru.
“No, you won’t.” I turned away, Stiarna at my side.
“You will pay for this,” Aysche shouted at my back. “Wicked D’ahvol. I curse you!”
Her voice faded as I walked away and didn’t look back.
Surprisingly, it was Aria who got us through the gate. While Beru and Estrid were still arguing about the best strategy to fight our way out, Aria walked right up to the gate master and requested that he give us passage.
“Your funeral,” he said, opening a small door through the guardhouse and giving us and Stiarna a wide berth as we exited. I guessed he had more to worry about now than the Svands.
“You could have gotten hurt or arrested,” Beru grumbled when the door slammed behind us, the iron lock sliding into place.
Aria shrugged. “Sometimes warriors see only the fight. Don’t forget that there are often easier ways. Ways that don’t actually involve bloodshed.”
Beru harrumphed, reminding me of Erik in that moment.
Laughing, Estrid thumped him on the back. “Sure, but they’re a lot less fun.”
The climb up the cliff was quicker this time, with Stiarna leading us up hidden, twisting paths. There were still some difficult passages, ones that would have been easier to traverse with wings or claws, some that even Stiarna stumbled a bit on without the use of her wings. Without the proper climbing gear, I kept close to Grissall, who was ill-equipped for the difficult climb or anything that required much physical effort, really.
She and I had never really been friends, even though we lived beneath the same roof. For the first few months, she refused to speak to me, and when she did work up the nerve to do that, she kept her eyes on the ground, as if by looking at me, she would catch the disease that made me a D’ahvol. Eventually, after deciding that I would not, in fact, kill her for fun, she loosened up but still only spoke to me for practical matters—to take my order or to deliver my washing. I didn’t dislike her, but I certainly didn’t have any use for her. It would be interesting having her along now.
“Don’t put your foot there,” I told her as we crossed a narrow, natural stone bridge.
She picked her foot up just as the rock below it crumbled, leaving a small gap. The look she shot me told me she regretted ever coming along.
“It’s fine, don’t panic. Just be careful.”
&n
bsp; “As if I’m not.”
I nearly laughed at her defiance. Perhaps saving my life had given her the confidence she needed to contend with me. “Barepost careful and climbing-a-cliff careful are two totally different things.”
It was then, as she looked back at me to make some scathing retort, that she slipped. I reached for her, but she was already too far away, only one person able to be on the bridge at a time. She slid, her boots scraping the cliffside, her hands grasping for something, anything to hold.
Then a hooked beak snagged in the collar of her shirt.
Grissall yelped as she was jerked backward into the air and deposited none-too-gently on the other side of the path.
Stiarna released her shirt and blinked down at her.
“Th-thanks,” Grissall stuttered.
A small, nervous laugh bubbled up in my throat as Stiarna nipped at Grissall’s curly hair and then turned away, following the path up the mountain with careful steps, as if showing Grissall exactly where to put her feet. No one waited for me, but I made it across fine and scrambled after them.
We were nearly at the top, passing by the entrance to some small cave, when I heard a small growl from within. I stopped and peered in, and found myself face-to-face with a long snout and two large, protruding fangs.
I froze and held my breath as the cave dragon sniffed, its nose twitching. It took one step forward, and I took one back, my heel slipping off the ledge.
It came into the light, and I saw the black blood coating its fur, and a red, open wound on its neck. Behind it, I heard the growl of another creature.
“Me too,” I said, my voice a whisper.
It sniffed again, its tongue darting out, and then it withdrew back into the cave.
“Frida!” Estrid shouted from somewhere up ahead. “Let’s go!”
I slid sideways, not turning my back on the cave until I was past it. It may not have attacked me then, but I still didn’t trust its claws.
We reached the top of the plateau without further incident and followed the path through the woods, past the gate, and toward the clearing where the Iron Duchess waited. But as we grew closer, our pace slowed.
Being the Suun Page 15
