Dnara opened her mouth to answer, but found she had no words that could reach past the pain in her heart. Instead, she tightened her hug on Ren’s cold body and choked on a bitter sob. In truth, she had no clear answer for what had happened, only that it had happened, and that she once again lay at the center of someone else’s misfortune.
“Ren?” Nate was first to make some sense of the scene and broke from formation to run for the center. He slid on plated knees in the mud and came to a stop beside them, his confused eyes searching for an explanation. In return, Dnara could only offer him tears.
“What have you done, mage?” Liam came next, not with confusion but with anger and a blade deftly wielded. “What have you done to her?!”
“Step away, Liam.” Commander Aldric’s stoic order did not match the concern in his eyes, but he remained for his squad a symbol of stability even in a time of madness.
“But, sir,” Liam argued, his sword openly brandished to where Dnara lay on her elbows and knees in the mud. “She’s killed Ren!”
“We don’t know for certain what happened,” Aldric replied calmly.
“Brodan’s balls we don’t!” Liam shook with rage. “Look there, on Ren’s shoulder! This witch has done branded Ren with her foul magic!”
Dnara looked to where Liam’s sword tip pointed. A blistered circle of flesh marked Ren with the same rune engraved on Dnara’s palm. A pitiful, hiccupping sob escaped her throat. Liam was right. The beast had come for her and had taken Ren instead. “I’m so sorry.”
“See?!” Liam seethed. “She admits as much!”
“She may have saved Ren for all we know!” Nate shouted from his place next to Ren.
“Or, she-” Liam sputtered to a halt and turned sharply to Nate. “Saved? She... Ren lives?”
“Barely,” Nate said, his fingers pressed to Ren’s neck. “But yes, so put your sword down before you do something stupid.”
“Sweet Faedra’s mercy,” Liam muttered and sank to his knees, sword tip now planted into the earth for support. “I thought...”
“She’s alive?” Dnara asked to hear Nate say it again, too shocked to allow hope to take hold. “But the beast took her and... I saw her die!”
“Beast?” Aldric questioned then held up his hand before Dnara could answer. He called to three of his men. “Jarrel, ride to town and ready their healer. Teigen, Fox, ready a litter to carry her and follow behind on foot. It could be a concussion, so I won’t risk putting her on a horse.”
“Yes, sir!” the three men saluted.
“I’m going, too,” Nate said, to which Aldric nodded.
“I’ll go-” Liam started but Nate cut him off.
“You’ll stay here and make sure nothing happens to Dnara, or Ren will kick your sorry arse when she wakes up.”
That settled, Jarrel left in a swift run to find a horse while the other two men came forward to help set Ren onto Nate’s back. The female soldier’s eyes were closed and she made no sound as they moved her. After a lingering look in Dnara’s direction, Nate took carefully placed, steady steps to the tree line. Aldric and the remaining men tightened their circle.
“What beast?” Aldric asked.
Dnara pushed herself up and sat on her heals. “You didn’t see-? No, of course you didn’t see it. Ren couldn’t see it either. It looked like this giant...shadow, but I think it was actually a dragon.”
“A dragon?” Liam shook his head in disbelief. “There hasn’t been a confirmed dragon sighting in all of Ellium for over eight hundred years!”
“I could be mistaken,” Dnara admitted. “But, it felt like a dragon.”
“Felt?” Aldric cocked his head to the side as he tried to understand her strange choice of words. “And how does a dragon feel?”
“Like fire,” she responded, a haze filling her eyes as she remembered the desperate creature she had seen trapped beneath the shadows. “Only, this one’s fire had been extinguished a long time ago, I think. It seemed ready to... No, it wanted to die.”
“Then why’d it attack you and Ren?” Liam asked a perfectly reasonable question, even as his hand splayed across the three large gouges left in the earth by the beast’s talons. “Why not just land itself on our spears?”
Dnara looked at her mud covered arms, at the scars upon them and the mark in her palm as she attempted to offer an answer she could barely see for herself. “I don’t think it was the dragon that attacked us. It was the shadow.” Raising her eyes, she could understand the doubt and confusion within Liam’s gaze. “A shadow, some dark thing, has taken control of the dragon and is using it to hunt.”
Liam withdrew his hand from the claw marks and eyed the gash on Dnara’s neck where a rivulet of blood trailed downward and disappeared beneath her cotton underdress. Swallowing, he cast his gaze aside and stood. Sheathing his sword, he retrieved one of the towels and wrapped it around her shaking shoulders. They shared a silent moment in which his eyes showed worry for her distress and shame for his accusations.
“And what is it hunting, this shadow beast?” Aldric asked, his thick black eyebrow raised.
Dnara looked away from Liam and back to her recently acquired markings. “Most likely, me.”
Aldric knelt before her, one steel plated knee in the mud and big hand resting on the gilded hilt of his sword. “You don’t sound as shocked by this idea as one would expect. Have you knowingly put my squadron at risk without telling me?”
The wind whipped around the clearing and tugged at the red plume topping Commander Aldric’s helmet, his tone caring a clear warning that she should choose her next words wisely. He ignored the wind and Dnara silently wished for the spirit to calm. The men standing around her were looking no more at ease than when they believed her responsible for the death of Ren. The wind stirred the leaves at their feet and a few of them took a step back.
Dnara inhaled deeply, trying to calm her own nerves in the hope it would calm the wind, too. Her heartbeat had yet to find a pace unhurried by memories of the beast’s roar and the blank dead-eyed stare of Ren across frozen blades of grass. Closing her fist around the mark on her palm, she recalled the brilliant stars and their promise of hope. She clung to that memory and found bravery to face an unwanted truth.
“This is not the first creature to come after me,” she said. “I don’t know what they want with me, or why, and I swear I didn’t know another would come after we wounded the first.”
“We?” Aldric asked.
“I had help the last time,” Dnara replied. “Friends, who I now believe are better off away from me. It seems all those I come to call friend end up in danger, like Ren, even though I don’t understand the reasoning behind it. I never would have dreamed of a raven hunting me, much less a dragon.”
“A raven?” Aldric shook his head as if all she said only brought more questions than the answers he sought.
“Yes, her name is-” Dnara’s throat closed around the word and her tongue refused to move. The same spell that afflicted Athan, Dnara had little doubt. “It doesn’t matter. She’s dangerous, and powerful, but wounded. Though, perhaps not as wounded as I believed. This creature may be connected to her. She’s directed others to search for me, but nothing like a dragon. I thought... I thought I could be safe, that I was doing the right thing in following your squadron into Carn. Now, I’m not certain of anything.”
Aldric stared at her for a quiet moment before removing his hand from the hilt of his sword. “You can be certain of my word to see you safely to Carn to stand before the king.”
“But I am putting you all at risk,” she argued, frightened but open to the idea of going the rest of her journey alone.
“It is a risk we have all sworn to take, in the name of the king, to protect the kingdom of Carnath and its people, be they farmer or noble.” He placed a finger upon the rune marking her palm. “Or mageborne.”
His oath rekindled the hope in her heart to chase away the fear shrouding it, but a tear escaped and slid down her chee
k as she met his unwavering gaze. “Commander, I’m not certain what I am.”
His stoic gaze broke apart for just long enough to reveal a heart of compassion beneath his granite skin. She had borne witness to the truth of Ren’s words; Aldric was a great commander, and Dnara believed him to be an even better man. As his strong fingers wrapped around her marked hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, it felt as if she could lay all her troubles at his feet and he would help her to carry them without question.
“There may be answers to that for you in the red city,” he said.
“I hope so,” she replied. “If I can make it there. More things may hunt me.”
His fingers opened her hand so he could look at the mark on her palm once more, an idea coming to his intelligent gaze. “To hunt something, you must be able to track it, be it footprints on the earth or scent in the air. I wonder how these creatures are tracking you?”
“Well, my footprints are no different than another’s, and I don’t think I smell like anything but mud and river water,” she said, earning the hint of a smile from his lips.
He glanced to her neck where the white ring could still be seen even under flickering torch light. “You have worn a collar before. Did the creatures hunt you then?”
“No. The creatures, these shadows, are as new to me as the magic and-” She stopped and looked down to the rune. “The magic,” she whispered, connecting it all together. “The raven said she had to wait; to wait for me until I had lost the collar and left the grove. I didn’t have magic, I didn’t have the wind, until I lost the collar. And now the dragon... It will come back. It will hunt me all the way into Carn, and it will find me, because it’s following the magic.”
Commander Aldric’s expression told her he had already reached that conclusion for himself, but he had wanted her to speak it first. “If this is so,” he spoke with the unhurried accent of the Orc’kothi, lending wisdom to his words that extended well beyond the years he had lived. “Then to hide you, we must hide the magic.”
“How?” The word trembled past her lips, because she already knew and feared the answer.
He reached behind his back, to a place on his belt kept covered by the embroidered cape of red, black and gold. A click rebounded into her thumping heart as he unhooked something. He kept his gaze even with hers as he brought the object around to his front. Even without looking, she knew what he held.
The wind knew, too, and it rushed around him to show how it felt about the collar he offered. His red plume danced in an angry breeze. Pine needles and dead leaves slapped against his armor. A few of the men shouted in alarm as the wind circled around the blockade they had formed. Overhead, treetops swayed between moonbeams, and ashbirds flew from their roosts in a rush of beating wings. In the center of a growing maelstrom, Aldric’s gaze remained steadfast.
“I will not force it upon you,” he said, his voice rising over a gusting howl. “It remains your choice.”
Her gaze left his to look down at the collar, knowing full well he could easily overtake her and place the collar around her neck in a single breath. Unlike her first collar, this one would be her choice. He had placed the safety of his soldiers, and possibly the lives of those who lived in the red city of Carn, into her hands.
The collar’s silver circle was thinner than her original collar, its circular clasp at the back which held the starstone, smaller. It lay unlatched and open in his hand, but even at that distance, she could feel the starstone’s pulsating buzz. It brought with it unwanted memories of her life before the wind had followed her from the forest, from a time before Athan and Jenny and the people of Lee’s Mill. From a time when she had held no magic, had been trapped in a tower, kept from the world, and kept safe.
She reached for the collar.
The wind howled. Men raised their arms up to shield their eyes. Some lashed out at it with their swords. Commander Aldric remained unmoving, the collar held within his open palm.
“Stop,” she called to the wind as her hand hovered over the collar. “Please! He means only to help!”
The wind pushed between them, strong enough to make even Aldric lean slightly to the side. The metal collar trembled in his palm, threatening to be blown away. One soldier in the circle lost his footing and fell onto his back.
“Don’t hurt them!” Dnara shielded her own eyes as the wind swept through her hair and tried pulling her away from Aldric.
Her eyes looked to the soldiers as they tried to remain in place, fighting an enemy without flesh nor form. Some shouted, others swung their swords madly to bat away debris. Torches sputtered and many fizzled to smoke. The wind roared like the beast and Dnara covered her ears as the sound shook both her heart and the ground beneath her bare feet.
It was all madness, and she wanted it all to end.
Centering the maelstrom, Aldric kept his gaze on her, pleading with her to accept the choice offered. She met his eyes and felt her soul anchored by his resolve. Her fingers touched the cold metal and stars blinded her vision.
Dnara floated on the endless black sea. Before her lay three paths, outlined by the stars. On one path, she accepted the collar and Aldric’s promise. On another, she turned the collar down but followed his men into Carn. On the third path, she walked alone. Each of these paths flowed outward through time, crisscrossing and overlapping in places and greatly diverging in others. Ghostly images appeared and vanished in the blink of an eye, too many to make sense of them all, but too few to deny the incomplete stories they told.
Going alone meant death. Refusing the collar meant the death of Aldric’s men, with her own survival uncertain. The only path that led safely to Carn, drawn like a paved road through the stars, was the one in which she wore a collar around her neck. The images from this path were hazier than the others, as if trapped within a thick fog, but she could see within the great hall of the Red Keep a carved dragon throne of white Elvan hartwood and a young man seated upon it, a golden crown of rubies and sapphires adorning his head.
Her fingers curled around the collar.
A flash of gold flew through her hair next to her ear with whispers carried on the wind. This new path joined the others in the sky above the black sea and drew a straight line to Carn, without ending in death and with imagery the clearest of them all. What she saw emblazoned in the stars terrified her.
There, she stood alone but unthreatened, head held high with the wind in her hair, fire from her palm and shadows following in her wake. In this path, all who came before her with sword or spell crumpled to their knees, mouths and eyes agape in the agony of death. A crown of sapphires fell from the stars to circle her head, and behind her the dragon roared. With undaunted footsteps, her fearless visage carved a clear path to Carn and came before the king of the Red City. The young king arose from his throne with a deeply set scowl and ordered Aldric to stop her. A loyal soldier to the last, the commander followed his king’s order and fell to cinders and ash at Dnara’s feet. The last haunting wide-eyed question of ‘why?’ etched in Aldric’s gaze as he fell would be forever seared onto Dnara’s heart.
No, she thought, even as the wind urged her onto this assured path. On this path, none would threaten her. On this path, she would be safe and reach Carn to discover the truth of Ishkar’s words. On this path, she would be free from the collar and all she feared, but at what cost?
“A cost too great,” she whispered as her mind resurfaced into the windswept clearing where soldiers yelled and Aldric waited with collar in hand.
The wind blew with gale force, lifting the collar from Aldric’s palm. Dnara snatch it from the air and snapped it around her neck. All at once, the wind died. Leaves floated down to the forest floor like softly drifting snowflakes. The men stopped their flailing and gazed around in hushed uncertainty. No ashbird called, no tree branch moved and stillness sheltered the clearing.
The collar around Dnara’s neck buzzed with an unfamiliar tone. It grated on her mind and made her dizzy. Every muscle in her body c
onstricted so tightly her bones ached. A breath became a gasp. Fog entered her vision, and she felt herself slipping into unconsciousness. Dnara realized too late that this new collar was very different than her last. In fear of becoming more than she had been, she had forsaken the gift granted by the wind. Having wanted so desperately to live, now she felt as if all her dreams were dying.
“What have I done?” she asked, falling forward into darkness and Aldric’s waiting arms.
Part 4
Into the Kingdom of Lies
The years pass by like falling snowflakes. Individually, too many to count or discern in significance. Together, they form a blizzard; a white haze now blanketing the world outside this forest. Have I done the right thing? For the right reasons? I do not know, but as I age and my power wanes, the snow has become too deep to turn back on the journey I began so long ago.
I fear she is not ready. I fear I am not ready. I fear the world is less ready still.
When we lamented the departure of the wind, when we said it had abandoned us, we were but children stumbling blindly with hands raised to the sky, crying out in confusion and unable to see the truth. I have had many years beyond what was owed to me, many years to consider this question. Why did the wind leave?
It is she who has taught me the answer, taught me so much without knowing it. How ignorant we were, how deeply trapped within our hubris! We thought ourselves gods and became monsters of our own making.
The wind never stopped speaking to us. We stopped listening to it. It did not abandon us. We abandoned it, and this mistake could cost us everything.
Please, let her be ready.
-Ishkar Ankari,
a fool.
35
The Gates of Ka’veshi
“Steady now,” Serenthel said under his breath to Forfolyn, though also to himself as they neared the giant iron gates of Ka’veshi.
Forfolyn snorted and tugged at his reins, his big head bobbing next to Serenthel as they stood in the long line of people, carts, oxen and horses waiting to pass through the gates. Forfolyn’s large size and widely splayed antlers stood out as much as Serenthel’s forest green cloak, with its skillfully embroidered depiction of the Mother’s tree done in a silver thread that caught the early morning sun. Serenthel saw no point in keeping the cloak’s hood raised. If his attire and elk companion didn’t declare him as Elvan, then his pointed ears and long hair would do little to help the blind discern his origins. The open stares from those standing in line near him were to be expected from the children of Retgar, so he kept his own gaze aimed at the gate ahead in the hopes none would think to start a conversation. The hour was early, he was tired from walking most of the night, and he had yet to eat breakfast. Conversation with the locals would be tedious, as the Orynthians seemed to enjoy long-winded speeches in which very little of consequence was said.
When the Wind Speaks (Starstone Prophecies Book 1) Page 30
