“I am Serenthel,” the elf said then patted the horned animal’s neck. “And this my friend, Forfolyn. He’s quite gentle, I assure you, and there is nothing to fear from me, boy.”
Boy. Apparently the Elvan didn’t know an Orynthian girl’s name from a boy’s.
Naomi sucked in a breath and made no move to correct the elf, instead taking on the more masculine posture she used while evading the Snatchers at night. In her short, rough life, she’d learned well that it was better to be assumed a boy than noticed as a girl, especially when strangers were involved. From his stoop, Adibe let out a quiet chuckle, but also let the assumption stand.
“Come, come,” Adibe encouraged. “This man has come a long way and has brought a rare treasure. You must see it!”
Man? Naomi didn’t know about that, but she kept her laugh to herself. With steps made in feigned boyish bravado, she approached the odd pair at Adibe’s insistence. The elf stood taller than the boys his age in Ka’veshi, but she’d always heard rumors the Elvan were tall, and willowy, and too delicate for the realm of humans. Why this one had come to the most densely populated human city in all Ellium only drew Naomi’s suspicion more tightly around her.
“My greetings to you, Naomi,” Serenthel said, his strangely formal dialect adding to the noble air held about him.
It made Naomi all the more uneasy, but she managed a nonchalant raise of the chin. “Hey.” Lowering her pitch strained her throat, but she believed herself practiced enough at it to fool a fish out of water like this elf. She did, however, give the beast Forfolyn a wide berth as it attempted to greet her with its large nose.
“Forfolyn is an elk,” Serenthel informed. “I see by your eyes you have not encountered one before?”
“No.” She deliberately kept her answer short while Adibe let out a small chuckle.
“Naomi’s never been beyond the city gates,” Adibe informed, “And we don’t get many of your kind inside the city.”
“You’ve never been beyond the city gates?” Serenthel repeated with astonishment raising his perfectly shaped eyebrows.
Naomi felt judged and immediately disliked his perfect eyebrows. “So? How often do your kind go beyond their own wall?”
The Elvan boy’s eyebrows lowered and his lips upturned into a smile. “You have me there. I beg your pardon for my presumptuous judgment of your choice to remain within your city’s boundaries.”
His unexpected turn around left her without retort, and she found herself disliking his eyebrows a little less, and perhaps liking his smile a little more. That only made her want to redouble her defenses. Crossing her arms over her fabric wrapped chest, she ignored the elf’s apology and spoke to Adibe. “Why is he here?”
“I’ve come seeking aid from a master silversmith,” Serenthel answered to Naomi’s cold shoulder when Adibe just grinned.
“In the Washerwoman’s district?” Naomi’s pitch raised along with her ire at Serenthel answering a question obviously not intended for him. The elf’s eyebrow rose again. She cleared her throat and waggled a finger at Adibe while adding a gruff edge to her words in the hopes of sounding like more of a boyish bully than an irritated girl. “What’s going on, old man?”
“One should be more respectful of their elders,” Serenthel chided under his breath.
“One should mind their own business,” Naomi muttered back as Adibe snickered like a fool too far into his wine bottle.
A clattering cart loudly rumbled down the street behind Adibe’s stoop. The shadows of three gaggling women danced across the cobbles, their proximity to a rare sight in Ka’veshi going unnoticed. From further away, angry shouts went up about the late arrival of goods. A hot breeze blew through the narrow passage, temporarily drying the sweat from Naomi’s brow before the humidity returned with renewed vengeance. Another day in Ka’veshi, her city, her home.
“You were too young to remember,” Adibe finally spoke once the street beyond had calmed to its more muted mix of talking pedestrians and creaking wagon wheels. “But I haven’t always been sitting here on these stairs.”
Despite knowing it must be true, Naomi had a difficult time picturing Adibe anywhere else. He’d been sitting on those stairs for as long as she’d been on her roof. Memories of her childhood were fuzzy at best, filled with running and scrounging and a lack of shoes. It wasn’t something she let her mind linger on, for good reason. Looking backwards had a habit of making you unable to see the dangers right in front of you. She’d been the unwanted bastard child of a Rose and some man who’d rather Naomi never been born. That, she always thought, was more than enough to know about her past. It’s not like her story didn’t match up to any one of a thousand bastard orphan brats in the city, born to Roses and sold to one guild or another.
Except she’d never been sold. Never been guilded. Somehow, she’d wound up in this alley and up on that roof, and Adibe had always been waiting below.
More shouts from the streets cut into her wandering thoughts as Adibe took in a long breath only to cough it back out. His health had been getting worse, and she worried for him. The worry, she admitted, was for selfish reasons. Adibe remained her single link to existence in this city, and she feared what may happen to her when time inevitably snuffed it out.
“Want some water?” Naomi asked, her concern breaking apart her feigned machismo.
“Here,” Serenthel offered, holding out a water skin.
It made Naomi dislike him a little less. But, only a little. He was still a stranger, and an elf, and he kept glancing at her as if she were a puzzle to be solved.
“Thank you.” Adibe took a small sip and smacked his lips. “The city is becoming more parched as the days fade into Haden, and I fear the rains won’t come this year to offer relief.”
“I just heard the same crazy rumor near the soap house,” Naomi said.
“It’s carried by the unsettled sands of the Earth,” Adibe nodded. “And when it reaches the ears of the Water...”
Shouting from the street grew as it neared the alleyway’s entrance. Naomi leaned out past the tall elf blocking her view, squinting through the sunbaked haze. A few men ran by, their shadows casting lines over Naomi’s face. More shouts from farther down the street sounded angrier than before. A woman ran by next in the opposite direction, yelling for her husband.
“Ah,” Adibe sighed, his head lowering. “It seems the Water already knows.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Serenthel said as he leaned into the alleyway with Naomi, staring out at the growing commotion on the street. “What is this talk of earth and water I keep hearing? Is it some sort of weather event?”
Naomi tore her gaze away from the street to stare dumbfounded at the elf. “Weather event? Are you dim? You seriously don’t know who-”
“You must not judge Serenthel for his ignorance of our ways,” Adibe instructed in a clear tone, abruptly ending Naomi’s words and flushing her face with the shame of a scolded child. “Instead, you must become his guide in a word vastly different than his own, but a world he must come to understand if there is to be hope for all our peoples.”
“What?” Naomi blinked at the old man. “I’ve not got time to be some city chaperon to a lost elf boy who came to the Washerwoman’s district to find a damn silversmith!”
“Boy?” Serenthel bristled but went unanswered.
“Not a city chaperon,” Adibe said with a stubborn glare to match Naomi’s. “But a guide to the world of men. You must go with Serenthel and leave the city at once.”
“What!?” Naomi threw her hands up, no longer able to keep her voice lowered. “Leave? The sun’s baked that balding head of yours, Adibe. No one leaves Ka’veshi!”
“At once?” Serenthel switched his attention back to Adibe. “But, what of my box?”
“I cannot open it.” Adibe held out the cloth wrapped, brick shaped object. A corner of the cloth fell away and sunlight glittered across luminescent silver.
“But, I thought...” Serenthel
looked absolutely crestfallen, while next to him Naomi couldn’t wrap her head around the display of absurdity this afternoon had become.
“By Ishkar’s quill, of course he can’t open it! He not a silversmith!”
“But he was,” Serenthel argued, as from the streets the cacophonous sounds of shouting had become more of a unified drone, swelling like waves kept in time by the stamping of feet.
“I was once guild master of the Silversmiths,” Adibe confirmed to Naomi’s slackened jaw. The hollow clangs of wooden washing paddles bagging against copper pots joined the uproar from the street. Adibe cursed under his breath and pushed the box back into Serenthel’s reluctant grasp. “I’d hoped to have more time, but you came later than expected.”
“Expected?” Serenthel asked, his shock now matching Naomi’s.
“More time for what?” Naomi’s eyes darted from Adibe to the passing crowds and back again. “What is going on?”
Adibe took Naomi’s hands into his and gave them a gentle, heartfelt squeeze. “There is so much I wished to tell you, but...” He inhaled and shook away the emotions clouding his eyes. “You must go with Serenthel. Ah, ah,” he stopped her argument before it began. “You must leave the city. You must help him finish what she started.”
“She who?” Serenthel asked.
“I can’t leave the city,” Naomi argued over the elf, more concerned with the where than the who. “Where am I supposed to go?”
“Northeast,” Adibe replied, as the crowd’s unified voice exploded into thunderous pandemonium. “To D’nas Glas.”
Serenthel gasped. “D’nas Glas?”
“It is the only place your box can be opened, and you must-” Adibe said before his voice became lost among the thunderous sounds rebounding down the alleyway.
Horns joined the metal chorus. Naomi startled, fear replacing confusion. She couldn’t leave the city, and she certainly had no desire to go traipse around some Elvan ruin that Adibe had told her too many ghost stories about to count!
“Adibe!” A large woman with thick arms from countless years spent at a washtub appeared in the doorway, her hands wringing with worry. “The sands of Earth have changed direction, and Water now moves to extinguish the Fire!”
“Those fools! It’s too soon.” Adibe cursed then huffed out a breath. “Gather the bundle from beneath my bed, Esfir. We are out of time.”
Esfir looked from Adibe to Serenthel to Naomi, let out a nervous cry, then threw up her hands and disappeared back into the house. The crowd walking past the alleyway had become a throng, thousands strong, chanting the same words over and over. ‘Futrar’ish Sultina! Futrar’ish Sultina!’
Death to the Sultinate.
“Everyone’s gone mad,” Naomi muttered, retreating a step back into the safe shadows of the alleyway.
“On that we can agree,” Serenthel said, clutching the box to his chest.
“Here!” Esfir reappeared in the doorway and plunked a cloth-wrapped bundle into the old man’s lap. Without warning, she grabbed Naomi by the cheeks and kissed her forehead. “Ishkar’s wisdom go with you, child.”
Before Naomi could react at being suddenly blessed by a woman she barely knew, Adibe handed Esfir the dark green cloth that had been wrapped around the bundle. Esfir, in turn, wrapped the cloth, a cloak, around Naomi’s shoulders and pulled the hood up to shroud Naomi’s face. Naomi fingered the luxurious cloth, holding up the front hem to the sunlight and illuminating silver thread that had an eerie resemblance to the cloak Serenthel wore.
“Quickly now,” Adibe urged, standing on wobbly knees and pushing a full pack into Naomi’s arms. “Up on Forfolyn.”
“Wait, please,” Serenthel implored with a hand on Adibe’s shoulder. “What is this all about? Why am I to take this boy to D’nas Glas, and where did you get that Elvan cloak?”
“Y-yeah!” Naomi sputtered as Adibe urged her closer to the enormous elk. “W-what he said!”
“No time,” Adibe argued.
A woman’s scream echoed over the crowd marching past the alleyway. A horn bellowed. An explosion shook the city, sending dust falling from the sky like rain.
“Demroth have mercy!” Esfir cried.
“Damn the Water and her impatience!” Adibe spat then grasped Serenthel’s shoulder. “I ask you to do this because you must! Ka’veshi is about to be torn from its roots, the false Fire will be extinguished, and I will not have Naomi killed in the chaos that will follow. Above all else, she must live.”
“She?!” Serenthel glanced wide-eyed at Naomi who stood unspeaking with her mouth agape. “I... I beg your pardon, my lady.”
“Beg later,” Adibe pressed Serenthel to focus. “Now, you must run!”
“I...” Serenthel looked around, perhaps for a way out, then gave in to the chaos he’d found himself in. “All right, but I still do not understand why.”
Adibe’s bony fingers gripped the elf’s shoulder as their eyes met. “Because, my friend, Ishkar did not just write the fates of man, and wherever this path leads, you have already promised to follow it to its end.”
Serenthel fell silent, as if the words had struck something inside his heart. Without further argument, he tucked the box into Forfolyn’s saddlebag and gracefully mounted the elk’s back without the aid of a stirrup. He held a hand down to Naomi.
“Come, my lady, we must go.”
Naomi stared at the hand as tears blurred her vision. Terror took hold and she could not will herself to move. Adibe gently pulled her into a hug, the very first hug she could ever remember receiving.
“I don’t understand,” Naomi heard herself say. She felt detached from the moment, as if it were happening to somebody else. She wished it was happening to somebody else. “Why are you sending me away?”
“Oh, my dearest child,” Adibe whispered in her ear as behind him the street broke out into violence. “There is never enough time in this world, but know that this is done out of great love. Remember the stories I have told you, the lessons you have learned from this city, and follow Serenthel. Find strength in one another. Together you will find the answers. You must.”
“Answers to what?” Naomi meekly asked on a broken voice as her entire world began to crumble.
Adibe leaned back, wiped her tears away and smiled the saddest smile Naomi had ever seen. “Answers to questions of Ellium’s past, and hopefully, its future.”
In a haze of confusion and sorrow, she let Adibe guide her up to sit behind Serenthel, the pack of unknown contents pressed between them. Serenthel urged her to hold on, and she did, though she felt like everything else about her life was now slipping away. Murderous shouting erupted from the street. Esfir cried, Adibe smiled that sad smile, and Naomi buried her face in Serenthel’s cloak with a want to hide from it all.
“You remember the path Farrah showed you here?” Adibe asked, to which Serenthel confirmed. “Good. Take it back, but at the house with the blue door, go left instead of right onto a street with red stone curbs. Follow it all the way to the north gate. This madness should not have reached the Upper Clefts, yet, but be quick. There is a caravan leaving for Carnath. Follow it until Rajat’veshi, then head east. If they give you trouble at the gate, ask for Hisham, and tell him Adibe has called in his favor.”
“Understood.” Serenthel eased Forfoyln into a turn.
Naomi’s heart leapt into her throat as she finally regained the courage to look back at Adibe. “Can’t you come with us?”
“No, child.” Adibe’s solemn smile plucked a sting that resonated into Naomi’s soul and would forever be a part of her. “My story ends here, but yours is just beginning.”
Another explosion rumbled through the city, shaking the buildings and sending chunks of plaster to the street. Adibe swatted Forfolyn’s flank and the elk bolted, racing through the alleyway with hooves that clopped over cobblestones. Serenthel leaned forward and Naomi leaned with him, his cloak and the wind catching tears she once swore she would never let fall.
37
>
A sudden jolt broke the rhythmic rocking that had kept Dnara asleep within the wagon, nestled between tent poles and tarps with a sack of milled corn supporting her head. The sweet scent of the corn barely registered, and she opened her eyes to a world now fuzzy around the edges. She could feel her fingers and toes, but each flex felt like moving through mud. Even breathing came in slow, evenly paced intervals unhurried by an uncertainty about where she was and what had happened. In truth, she did not care. She did not care about anything.
“Miss?” Liam’s voice echoed strangely, as if he stood far from her with a thick barrier between them. His hand touched her shoulder then helped her sit up. He gave her a relieved smile, one that she couldn’t return. “Hold on a second,” he said then leaned out of the back of the wagon and loudly whistled before shouting. “Commander! She’s awake!”
After shouting the news, Liam sat down across from her, smiling. “You had us worried. Been asleep for nearly three whole days, you have.” He rifled through a sack, bringing a memory to Dnara’s mind, but it faded away into nothing before she could latch onto it. “It unsettled the commander so much, we doubled our pace from Haden’s Crossing. Never seen him unsettled like that.”
He paused in his rummaging. “But you didn’t hear that from me.” He gave her a sheepish grin then pulled something from the sack. “Unsettled all of us, if I’m being honest, even hard-headed me. Never seen a collar do that to a mageborne.” He offered her a waterskin and a corn cake. “Never seen the wind almost take out an entire squadron before, either.”
She stared at the offerings held out to her. Was she thirsty? Hungry? She didn’t know.
As the offering went untaken, Liam’s elation faltered. “Miss?” He waved a hand in front of her face.
She blinked and continued her steady breathing, her body calmly swaying along with the wagon’s bumpy ride. Horse hooves clopped in their approach and Liam gave another whistle with a beat of his fist to the sideboard. The wagon stopped after a gentle ‘whoa’ from the driver and Liam set aside his offerings to lower the back gate. Dnara remained unmoving within the fog surrounding her.
When the Wind Speaks (Starstone Prophecies Book 1) Page 32
