by Meg Cowley
They stood in silence, her arms still wound around his waist, his hands stroking the small of her back. Her heart hammered in her chest. Whatever this was, it was foolishness, but she could not deny their attraction any longer, even if nothing could ever come of it, even though it could never be more than a distraction from their cursed circumstances. He seemed to know it as well as she, but it only seemed to encourage them both, to whatever end.
The question hung between them. Would they share a chamber that night? He seemed as timid to broach it as she.
“Dimi?”
At Emyria’s warbling voice echoing up the corridor, they sprang apart, sharing a nervous grin, before decloaking.
“Yes. We’ll have something warm, please, in the lounge,” Dimitri said quickly to Emyria, who bustled off none the wiser.
He held the door for Harper, and the warm air from the fire burning merrily in the grate blasted her. She sank gratefully onto the soft furs on the floors before it. After Emyria delivered their drinks and left, closing the door with a soft click, Dimitri sank down beside Harper.
His fingers intertwined with hers as he leaned on one arm next to her, their legs stretched out to the fire warming their frozen toes.
“You don’t hate me?” He raised a brow.
“No.” She bit her lip.
“You feel the same?”
She nodded mutely, still too scared to truly speak it, and leaned on his shoulder. He rested his cheek atop her head.
“I’m glad. I don’t know what’s going to happen, Harper. I’m not sure this is ever going to work, bu–”
“Ssh.” She tipped her head back to meet his eyes. “Stop overthinking it. Neither of us knows what’s going to happen tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy today.”
He smiled, his eyes warm, devoid of the usual sultry smirk he used to tease her with, and kissed her again, soft and searching. His hand caressed the nape of her neck, pulling her closer. Her eyes fluttered shut as she enjoyed the feeling of fire racing through her, the spark at every point of contact between them.
At the rattle of the door handle, they sprang apart, turning their heads away to hide blooming red cheeks as Emyria bustled in with a steaming tray.
“I thought you might need some sustenance, since you missed dinner.”
“Thank you, Emyria.”
She waved off Dimitri’s thanks and left once more, humming a tune as she did so.
The smell of meat and pastries rose to Harper’s nose, and she realised how hungry she was, having not eaten since breakfast. The moment broken, they set upon the food in companionable silence.
Harper smiled. The taste reminded her of the stew she had eaten with her companions the last true night they had been together at the Last Inn–before Ragnar, before the goblins, before Valtivar, before Saradon, before everything. Their last moments of innocent happiness.
“What is it?” Dimitri asked, noticing her pause.
“Just thinking of my friends,” she said, returning to her food, chewing the meat and pastries with slow relish. “Wondering where they are.” She sobered with that thought. Where were they all now? Still in Valtivar? All safe? She had little way to tell.
“I can find out, if you wish.” Dimitri’s voice was neutral.
“No,” she said quickly. “The risk is too great. I only hope Ragnar recovered well. And Brand and Erika.” Dimitri had told her he had seen Brand, Erika, and Aedon safely out of the ruined city. “And Aedon...”
“Why? Do you still desire him?” She could hear the raw jealousy in his voice.
She curled her lip. “No, not that it’s any of your business.” Sourness fell between them, all thoughts of romance cast aside. “Why do you hate him?”
Dimitri scoffed. “As if it isn’t obvious. Aedon, the golden boy,” he sneered. “Pride of Pelenor, youngest General of the Winged Kingsguard in a millennium, he who could do no wrong.”
“Jealousy doesn’t become you,” Harper spat, drawing away and sending a venomous look at Dimitri, who rankled.
“I’m not jealous,” he replied petulantly. “I never did like him. He was everything I wanted to be and never could. Happy, successful, wanted, legitimate.”
“He hates you, too, though,” Harper mused. “Why would he, if he had all you did not? Surely he pitied you.”
She did not miss the flicker of darkness that shadowed him at her words, a cold anger that made the Dimitri she had come to know, the one who made her heart flutter, disappear. Coldness settled in the pit of her stomach.
“You know of his dragon, yes?”
Harper nodded, eyes narrowing.
“He blames me for Valyria’s death. He’s an idiot. No one is to blame but him.”
“That’s not fair–”
“You weren’t there,” Dimitri warned her, glaring. “I discovered the goblins. I alerted him at once, as was my duty. I assumed he would do his duty and lead his command. He assumed I had passed on the knowledge to others, that reinforcements would arrive.”
“He said he knew he ought to have waited...”
“There you have it then. He knew he had not done his duty.” Dimitri pounced on the admission. “It wasn’t my fault. I did my duty, and I owed him nothing more. I did not know what had happened until some days later. In his anger and grief, he blamed me, but he knew he ought to have not been so rash, risked them both. He was a fool.”
“You know, he’s not as terrible as you think.”
Dimitri glowered at her.
“Just as you’re not as terrible as everyone thinks.”
He scowled and turned away.
She scoffed. “Men and their egos. Pathetic, the lot of you.”
How long would Aedon and Dimitri bear a pointless grudge against each other, born of jealousy and misplaced anger?
Brushing flakes of pastry from her lap, she rose and left without another word, berating herself every step of the way–to her own, lonely chamber–for the mixed lust and loathing she was filled with toward him.
Thirty Five
The königshalle ran freely with wine and food as dwarf dined beside man and elf, the dragons feasting outside the gates of Keldheim.
Korrin stood at the head of them all, and at his rising, they toasted him for leading them to victory. He acknowledged them with a bow of his head, and they quieted expectantly.
“This victory belongs to all of us–every man, elf, dwarf, and dragon here, and those who did not return with us.”
The hush was sombre.
“A toast, to our fallen.”
His words were repeated in a rumbling murmur, then silence, as each took a gulp from their drink.
“Their sacrifice was not in vain.” Korrin lowered his jewelled chalice and looked around, regarding them all, his beard and its embellishments shifting and glittering in the warm glow of the faelights in the windowless alcoves.
“We have all won a greater battle than we could have ever imagined. Our foes have never been weaker, and we shall take the opportunity to see that the scourge never darkens our borders again. When we are fully recovered, Afnirheim will be unsealed and restored.”
Mutters of agreement rose at his words. They had left the city a home for nothing but the dead, sealing it with magic and stone so none would again pass between the doors to desecrate the halls in their absence.
“It will be as it was, a testament to our craft, determination, and endurance. None will have seen its like.”
Cheers rang out that the city would be restored, not abandoned.
“We will show that no matter what we face, we will always rise stronger and more unyielding. We will show our foes that they cannot defeat us.” Korrin’s voice rose with the cheers until it boomed across the hall. “We will hunt the goblins to extinction ere they dare to show their faces in our mountains again!”
As one, the hall rose to toast Valtivar and salute their könig, the one who would deliver, for the first time in their history, the total defeat of their
age-old enemy.
“YOU DID WELL, COUSIN,” Korrin said, reclining in the comfortable chair before the fire. Ragnar sat on the opposite side of the hearth in a matching armchair. “Halvar was glad for your aid in the command.”
Ragnar dipped his head in acquiescence, but did not speak. He was certain Korrin would not like what he had to say.
“I was mistaken about you, cousin. Our rift grew deep, and perhaps that was not right on either of our parts.”
Ragnar glanced up in surprise. This was as close to an acknowledgment, and apology, that he ever had from his cousin.
“I want to extend you your old lands and titles, cousin. They are well-earned, despite your...peculiarities.”
Korrin paused.
Ragnar knew he would be expecting thanks and acceptance of his offer. He sighed. “Cousin, I cannot.”
Korrin’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Ragnar clasped his hands together and rested them atop his knees. “I cannot, in good conscience, accept. I have never been interested in land and titles. You know this. I have no place here–running mines, managing a city. I don’t belong here.”
“Cousin, you do yourself a disservice. You fought alongside your brothers. You are as deserving as anyone.”
“It’s not a matter of being deserving,” Ragnar said, choosing his words with care, yet knowing he had little chance of not offending the könig. “It’s that I don’t want it. For so many years, I wished I could belong here, be with our people, feel like this was my home, but my blood will always make it so that I cannot pursue what my heart desires.”
“Which is?”
“To wander the world. To craft for love, not money.” And to seek acceptance, Ragnar added silently. With the departure of his companions, he had felt an unwelcome, familiar loneliness, one he had not felt since he had first joined them years ago. He had never truly felt like one of his kin.
“Those are not fit aspirations for the könig’s cousin,” said Korrin sternly, frowning.
“And thus our problem here lies,” said Ragnar, gritting his teeth. “I have no interest in managing the mines–you know my feelings on the tikrit–but you will not change that, will you? Just as I will not change myself.”
Korrin’s scowl deepened. “No, that will not change. Will you not at least fight with us, your brothers, shoulder to shoulder, until this is done? I would value your support in ensuring the goblins never darken our halls again.”
“Warfare is not my expertise,” Ragnar said delicately. “I fight when I must. I neither relish nor excel in it.”
Korrin scoffed. “Who does enjoy it? No one I know. We would all prefer to live in peaceful times, but alas, sometimes that is not our lot. If you are so averse to it, will you at least help us rebuild Afnirheim? We would have need for craftsmen. It would be for all our prosperity, but can it not be for love, too? Will you not help renew the halls of our forefathers?”
“You would permit me to craft?” The implication was clear. An heir to the throne, cousin to the könig, permitted to engage in a profession so far below his rank?
“Yes. We shall have need of all those we can in the years to come, ensuring our borders are safe and Afnirheim flourishes once more. I will make an exception for you, if you so wish.”
Ragnar sat back in his chair, frowning, and his gaze dropped as he considered it. He could not have offered me anything else that would have been so tempting, he thought wryly. He offers me the one thing that could make me stay.
“I cannot say for certain, cousin,” Ragnar said at last. “I have business with my friends to attend to.”
“They are gone.”
“Yes,” Ragnar acknowledged, “but you know their purpose. This is not some inconsequential wandering, a petty quest.”
“They truly seek to cast down Saradon?”
The troubling news from Pelenor was common knowledge. The goblins may have been gone, but Ragnar knew Korrin would not be content to rest, not when the power that had been almost victorious in crippling the dwarves of Valtivar had now taken firm root in their neighbouring kingdom.
“Yes.”
“And they need you?”
“I’m not sure, but ever we have worked together, and each found their use or purpose. I cannot help but feel they need me now.” His conscience tugged him, but he could not discern to where.
“Hmm.” Korrin’s twisting mouth showed his disapproval as the könig fiddled with his beard ornaments.
“Give me time to decide, cousin.”
Korrin huffed. “Fine. You shall have it. But will you lend your strengths in the meantime?”
“Of course.”
That night, Ragnar tossed and turned in his bed. Is there any way I can belong to my kin, yet remain true to myself? He wondered where his companions were. Far-flung and separated as they were, he had no way to know what they faced, if they had need of him.
The night held no answers.
Thirty Six
“You will have no weapons to aid you,” Solanaceae’s brittle, gleeful voice rang out over the clearing, soon absorbed into the morning mist that wreathed the cold earth. The gnarled trees curled around to listen to Her voice, their very limbs creaking closer.
“What is the challenge?” Brand asked, his voice dark and full of suspicion. Leaves shivered around them at his words.
The Queen glared at him for his disrespect, but Aedon could see the gleam in Her eyes. She would overlook it, so glad was She of what they were to face. The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach tightened. He knew the happier She was, the worse it would be.
“You must escape,” She said brightly, as if that explained everything.
Aedon nudged Brand’s arm as the Aerian opened his mouth to challenge her. He looked at Aedon, who shook his head slightly. Neither Brand nor Erika truly understood the danger the Queen posed.
“Escape what?” Erika asked before Aedon could silence her, too.
Solanaceae only smiled, a feline smirk of sadistic pleasure, and turned away. She paced a few steps, then turned back to them. “I almost forgot.”
She reached a clawed hand to Aedon and yanked. Despite the fact they were a clearing apart, Aedon stumbled forward as if She had physically tugged him, his very breath rushing from his body as he collapsed to the ground upon all fours.
With cries, Brand and Erika sprang to his side, pulling him up. Aedon gasped for air, his very core feeling devoid of all things. With horror, he realised what She had taken from him.
“No!” he cried raggedly.
“I ruled there would be no weapons...and that means blade or magic.” With a widening of Her cruel, wolfish smile, She turned and left, Her retinue fading into the trees behind her.
With her absence, the trees turned back to the clearing. Aedon glanced around at the limbs that moved of their own accord, seeming to lean over the three companions until the misty air darkened further.
Beside him, he felt Brand and Erika tense. They, too, watched the trees. Was that what they were supposed to escape?
“Brand, I don’t, er, suppose you could fly us out of here?” Aedon’s voice was higher than normal.
“Afraid not, my friend.” His wings were still beyond use, under now dirtied, linen bandages.
“Right. Of course. Well... Which way?”
They shifted, standing back to back. Visibility was poor, seeing no more than a few trees in the distance over an uneven ground of mossy rocks.
To one side, distant but close enough to cause them all to jump, a blood-curdling howl tore through the quiet air.
Aedon swore under his breath. “It doesn’t matter which way we go,” he hissed. “We need to get as far away from that as we can.” At least he now knew what they faced.
“What is it?” Brand already faced the direction of the noise, his eyes darting at phantoms in the mist.
“A bargheist, a giant, wolf-like creature you really don’t want to meet.”
The howl sounded again, closer
.
Aedon swore, still reeling from the Queen’s theft of his magic, but knowing they had no choice. “As quietly as you can, run! As soon as it catches our scent, we have no chance.”
He dashed across the clearing, dodging between the slippery, mossy boulders, and chanced only one glance back to see that his companions followed, close on his heels.
Tree branches tore at them, deliberately, as though the forest wanted them to fail. It probably does, Aedon reckoned. The dhiran were as cruel as their Queen.
“Avoid the trees!” he called to his companions, growling as branches grasped at him, clawing, constricting. He ripped himself free, smashing his fists and throwing his weight against the wood to break free of their grip.
The howl rang out again, louder and more urgent, higher pitched. Fear flashed through Aedon, spurring him on. It’s caught our scent.
Sharp twigs scratched at them as they forced themselves through the thickening vegetation, but mercifully, the ground levelled out and the litter of stones diminished. With the decline of the hill, they picked up speed, vaulting across the babbling brook at the bottom of the small gulley and labouring up the other side, higher and higher still, until they finally broke through the mist atop a cliff crowded with trees.
Aedon halted them, but only for a moment, for accompanying the crashing of his heart was the din of the bargheist behind them. Suppressing a groan, he leaped forth once more, his companions following.
The woods thickened the farther up they ran, the twisting limbs that reached out to slow them down giving way to tall, dark evergreens that soon shrouded them in near darkness and silence beneath a black canopy that closed the grey skies from view.
Upon the bed of needles, Aedon and his companions paused, trying to force their deafening breathing to slow, but it was of no use. Trees stretched in all directions now–into the darkness.
Aedon cursed under his breath. It was just a game for Solanaceae. She did not care whether they lived or died. Either would be good sport for Her.
“We could circle back to the stream,” Erika suggested, though Aedon knew by her dull tone that she was as defeated as him. No weapons, no magic, no way to escape. The Indis warrior was pragmatic. She knew their prospects.
