Garrett set his hand on the book, then gently turned it over vertically in Athan’s grasp. “It seems, my friend, Ishkar didn’t just write it for her.”
Athan stared at the back cover, now flipped so it became a new front cover. The rune on it was the same, but inverted, with the joining point in the circle on the bottom instead of the top. Written at the bottom below the rune, in the script of common Carnathian, were two words. Athan Ateiros.
With shaking fingers, Athan opened the cover, and Ishkar’s words were waiting in handwritten ink.
‘By all accounts, you should despise my name by the time this book finds its way into your hands. My pen wishes so desperately to spill ink across the page in all it wants to tell you. But, as with all stories, I believe it is best to start at the beginning. So, please, be patient, and allow me to tell you a tale that begins well before your birth, before the blight began devouring magic from this world, and before a dragon made an ill-fated deal with a raven.’
41
“Stop!”
After riding silently behind Serenthel for what seemed like an eternity, unable to think, to speak or loosen the tight hold around his waist, Naomi’s shout burst from her chest with surprising command. Serenthel startled at the sound, and his great elk, Forfolyn, slowed to a trot before stopping completely. Naomi took in a deep breath of road dust and forced her fingers to untangle from the grip they held on Serenthel’s clothing. With ungraceful effort, she slid off Forfolyn’s high back and stumbled to the ground. On shaking legs, she began walking in the direction from whence they came, back towards Ka’veshi.
“My lady?” Serenthel called after her, his Elvan elegance striking the wrong chord up Naomi’s spine and quickening her pace along the narrow dirt road. Behind her, his boots lightly touched the soil as he dismounted the elk. “Where are you going?”
Naomi’s fist clenched the strap of the bag she’d been given by her only one true friend, Adibe, before he’d sent her away. “Home.”
Serenthel pursued. “But, Adibe said-”
“I don’t care what that old fool said!” Her legs pumped harder as Serenthel’s long strides effortlessly caught up to her angry march. “Most of what he said didn’t make any sense!”
“But, you saw the state of Ka’veshi as we left,” Serenthel argued.
Naomi hadn’t seen much, truth be told, as she rode behind Serenthel through the streets of Ka’veshi in a rush for the city’s north gate. She’d hidden within the confines of her cloak’s hood, shying away from a reality spiraling out of her control and denying the tears as they’d blurred her vision. She’d heard the yelling, though, and the explosions. She’d smelled the smoke, even if she’d been too afraid to look back at the fire.
Her fear turned into self-directed anger at having been such a coward. “So? I’ve survived in Ka’veshi just fine for sixteen summers. Guild spats come and go. They are part of life in the city, but the paradunes always settle back down eventually.”
“That was no mere spat, my lady,” Serenthel argued in a calm tone that grated against Naomi’s frayed nerves.
“What do you know of Ka’veshi, sharp-ear?” she argued back while continuing forward.
Serenthel let out the smallest sigh, a restrained note of growing agitation. “Even I, a newcomer to your city, could tell the beginnings of war. I highly doubt the lines in the sand, your paradunes, will settle without a great deal of time and an even greater amount of bloodshed. Adibe wished you to be safe from the growing violence, and I have been charged with ensuring that safety.”
“I didn’t ask to be safe!” Naomi dropped the canvas bag and threw her hands up towards uncaring gods before turning her glare on Serenthel. “And what safety could some elf boy and his elk possibly provide?”
A flash of emotion broke through Serenthel’s docile expression. “I am no boy.”
A laugh blurted out of Naomi, her mind still reeling from the absolute absurdity her day had become. “Is this where you give me the ‘I’m a man!’ speech, probably the same speech you gave your sharp-eared pa before sneaking past that fancy big wall you elves hide behind?”
Red blossomed across Serenthel’s cheeks as he faced the indignities she’d slung at him. His fists clenched in their leather gloves and he closed his eyes for a moment. Naomi stood there, waiting for him to shout at her and tell her to go back to her human city. She wanted him to. She wanted him to get so angry at her, he’d hop back up on that horned beast of his and leave her alone, just like everyone else had always done. Everyone, but Adibe.
After a long inhale and a rise in his shoulders, Serenthel opened his eyes as his expression became irritatingly placid once more. “My lady, I may look no older than you, but I have seen thirty summers come and go. I did not sneak past the wall, I was sent through it by my grove, my homeland, on an important journey. Furthermore, my people are not hiding behind Lath’limnier’s Wall; its magic protects us from the dark and corrupting dreams of men.”
Despite thinking her day couldn’t possibly get any more absurd, it just had. She stood in the middle of the unnamed farmer’s road, staring at him. Thirty summers? He stood taller than her, for certain, but he had no sign of facial hair or- Did elves grow beards? It didn’t matter. Even with the shadow of a beard, he’d still look like one of those young wealthy prats from the Pillars who were wasting their days drinking and waiting for their parents to buy them a bride. Men. Sharp-eared or not, she was better off without them.
“How could you possibly be thirty summers?!” was all she could think of to say.
He measured her response calmly, giving him the air of someone who had, indeed, seen far more summers come and go than she had. “My people age more slowly than your own.”
“More slowly,” she said, one hand raising to set on her hip. At least this puzzle gave her something to think about other than the chaos back in Ka’veshi, and how Adibe had stubbornly remained behind before practically shoving her onto the back of that damn elk. “Wait. So, you are just a boy, then?”
Serenthel’s nose wrinkled. “No, that’s not-”
“You just said ‘more slowly’,” she interjected, forcing a tiny noise of frustration from him. “Which means that thirty summers for you might even make you younger than me, relatively speaking.”
His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. He held up one finger then let it drop in defeat. “You are more clever than I gave you credit for, my lady.”
“Yeah well,” she shied away from the compliment, and the way his impression of a lost fish made him look much less like a prat from the Pillars. “You have to have some wit about you if you hope to hold your own in a conversation with that old man, or survive in a city like Ka’veshi.”
Serenthel nodded at that, considering a thought. “Perhaps that is why he asked you to become my guide in this world of men. I thought it an odd request to make of a-” He stopped mid thought and swallowed his next words.
“A what?” Naomi huffed, her second hand joining the first to set on her other hip. “A dirty, barefoot street orphan?”
“No,” he argued. “A child. I was going to say child.”
“Uh-huh, I bet.” Naomi rolled her eyes up to the sky. “Cursed by Ishkar’s quill, that’s what I am, to be stuck standing in the middle of-” she paused and looked around only to curse again. “Gods know where, with an elf boy and his elk!”
Serenthel’s nose wrinkled further. “Leave Forfolyn out of this.”
Naomi snorted a barely withheld laugh and glanced past Serenthel’s shoulder. The elk looked on, patiently waiting for the two bipeds to make up their mind which direction they should go. Naomi wanted an answer to that herself.
“Look, elf-”
“Serenthel,” he said, sounding as exhausted from the conversation as she felt. “My name is Serenthel.”
“Serenthel,” she repeated, hoping to appease him because arguing over names and ages had gotten them nowhere. “Adibe had obviously lost his fool mind when he
said I’m to be your guide or whatever. I don’t know this world. You heard him speak the truth of it yourself! I’ve never been outside Ka’veshi. So, why don’t you just let me go back where I came from, and you can go find some world-traveled merchant to show you around.”
“Because, Adibe said we should find strength in one another,” countered Serenthel. “That we must find answers to Ellium’s past, and hopefully its future.”
Naomi stared at him, shoulders drooping. “What does that even mean?”
“Truthfully, my lady, I haven’t the slightest clue.” The briefest hint of a boyish smile broke apart Serenthel’s placid expression then was gone again. “But, I believe those answers may await us in D’nas Glas.”
“You mean opening that silver box of yours,” Naomi pointed out the real reason the elf was so keen on going to some ghost-infested ruin.
“And why you now stand draped in an Elvan cloak,” Serenthel pointed out in return.
Naomi blinked, having almost forgotten the strange garment Adibe had pulled seemingly from thin air to drape around her shoulders before shoving her onto Forfolyn’s back. She fingered the edge, its dark green fabric softer than wool, lighter than silk and embroidered with what she thought may be actual silver thread. The cloak looked a lot like the one Serenthel wore, but something told her it had been made a much longer time ago.
“Come, my lady,” Serenthel called to her, having moved unnoticed back to wait next to Forfolyn. He stood, poised and patient with hand outstretched. “I swear this to you: I will find a way for you to return to your home once I have kept my promise to Adibe of keeping you safe and searching D’nas Glas for answers.”
Naomi thought he looked the role of some prince, making a foolish declaration like that. As his appointed guide to this world, the first thing she’d have to teach him would be that making promises was a good way to get yourself into trouble. If left alone, the poor sharp-eared boy would likely get himself robbed, killed or enslaved within a week. With a huff and an exaggerated dragging of her feet, she picked up her bag and walked to the elk.
Serenthel’s lips formed a victorious smile as he gracefully mounted the back of Forfolyn. With no stirrups, or even a real saddle, Naomi was forced to accept Serenthel’s assistance up to ride behind him. She was also forced to wrap her arms back around Serenthel’s waist for fear of falling off the elk as he began trotting down the road.
“Hold fast, my lady,” Serenthel said as he leaned forward into the elk’s quickening pace.
“Naomi,” she corrected as her grip tightened. “Just Naomi. I’ve been many things, Serenthel, but I’ve never been a lady.”
As Forfolyn’s trot broke into a run and left the road to race through a field, Naomi swore she could hear Serenthel’s laugh carried on the wind.
42
‘You must go to the Red City, to uncover the truth hidden within a kingdom of lies.’
Whispers from the dark recesses of a night without sleep brought Dnara to sit upright in bed amongst an overabundance of silk sheets, downy comforters and feather pillows. Her body turned, her legs left the blankets and her bare feet touched the carpeted floor. These movements were not her own, though for the first time since placing the collar around her neck, she experienced them with unhindered clarity.
She’d been brought to this room by the king’s servants, a room more opulent than any she had ever imagined. It spoke of wealth and power beyond even that of Keeper Ishkar’s grand study. Pure white marble and carved dark wood with gilded embellishments served as a foundation to this bedroom, its stone floors lined with soft crimson carpet on all but the very edges. Pillars held up a vaulted ceiling, every surface painted with all manner of scenes from deer in flowered meadows to lords and ladies dancing across the walls. If ever there were a concrete vision of royalty, this room and its decor would serve as a proper backdrop to the lives of kings and queens.
Why she had been afforded such luxury, she now had the clear minded ability to question. The only answer she had, frightened her. This gilded marble cage had indeed been intended for a queen, even if that queen had no desire to marry the king.
Lelandis had said he did not wish to force her, but his words brought little comfort. In her short span of freedom, Dnara had seen how desperation made short work of good intentions and could turn wishes into nightmares. Desperation had led to a bad deal with a raven and a false hope that she could be mother to a reborn god. Was this the truth that Ishkar had wanted her to see? Dnara couldn’t answer that question with certainty, and despite being able to think more clearly, she lacked the will to do anything other than watch as the world around her moved.
The king’s servants had bathed her, dressed her, brought to her a meal on a silver cart then left her there alone to rest. The meal, a roasted hen and colorful vegetables, remained uneaten, because they had neglected to tell her to do so. The bath had left her skin too fragrant and slick with oils. The dress, a heavy nightgown, impractical and overwrought with intricate lace and gold embroidery. It weighed down her steps as she shuffled across the room in the lethargic movements of one body being moved by another’s will.
Moonlight spilled onto the blood red carpet from large closed windows, illuminating the path on which she walked. Unexpectedly, her body paused by the silver cart, tore a leg from the hen and ate. Though not enjoying being a passenger in her own body, she relished the small relief to a hunger she’d been numb to earlier. After eating half the hen and downing a goblet of spiced honey water, she wiped her hands on a silk napkin then started back on her walk to an unknown destination.
Her body walked itself to the door she’d been ushered into hours earlier. The collar around her neck hummed and sent a shiver down her spine and back up again, as if being called. Her feet slid into silk slippers as embroidered as her gown, all of it a light lavender color that garishly contrasted against all the red and gold in the room. It all felt wrong, even though Dnara continued to struggle in an effort to feel anything at all.
Turning from the door, her slipper clad feet scooted across the carpet towards a wall set next to a dressing table. On the white wall, an armored knight knelt before a painted lady. The knight’s red plume reminded her of Aldric and their meeting in the clearing, though the fancy attire of the lady looked nothing like how Dnara had been dressed in the forest. Behind the knight, an unlit wall sconce protruded with melted wax untrimmed. Dnara’s hand reached out and pulled on the bronze sconce. A click echoed and Dnara felt the faintest hint of fear as the wall shifted inward and opened to a set of stone stairs leading down.
Her palm brushed over cold stone as her legs took her downwards. Though no light lit her path, her feet felt sure in their steps, as if she had walked down this secret stairway a thousand times before. Silence permeated and the air hung stale. The swish of her nightgown and the distant echo of dripping water accompanied the growing hum from the starstone at the back of her neck. Wherever it was taking her, Dnara felt certain that it had been there before.
But, how? How could a starstone have been anywhere before, much less remembered being there? But, she did not stumble in the darkness, and her body did not hesitate when the stairs ended and a low ceiling stone hallway began. It walked on, as if guided, while the starstone in her collar hummed.
‘They come from your kind, mageborne. When a mageborne dies, their body turns to ash, and all that’s left are starstones.’
The memory of Ren’s voice whispered from the shadows, speaking a truth Dnara found hard to accept. The starstone that had been in her collar before, and the collar she wore now, had been born from the death of a mageborne. Who had they been? Had they died of old age, or had they exploded before experiencing the world?
Then a more troubling thought shook Dnara even as her body walked onward without missing a step. Did these starstones remember who they had been?
As if in answer, the starstone in her collar resonated with a different tone as her body turned a corner, walked through a plain wo
od door deeply set under a cracked stone archway and stepped out onto a quiet courtyard. The moon watched as Dnara continued along a narrow cobblestone path, staying within the wall’s thin shadow until coming to a set of stairs climbing upwards along the outside of four story annex. Up she climbed, stair after stair after stair, until she felt as high as the moon.
The wind followed, giving movement to the layers of her nightgown, but she could not feel the embrace she had abandoned. Just when she thought perhaps her body had decided to walk all the way to the top, with an unsettling idea it may then fling itself over the edge, her feet stopped walking. She stood next to an arched, narrow window, its wooden shutters flung open to the mild night temperature. Candlelight flickered onto the stones, making them glow, and from within the room Dnara heard a sound she had grown accustomed to over the years: the rhythmic scratch of an ink quill upon parchment.
Her body sat down beneath this window and pulled her knees up to her chest. The wind played with her voluminous skirts for a moment before settling. A chorus of crickets drifted up from the courtyard far below. Dnara leaned back against the cool stones, and the starstone resonated.
‘Listen.’
If Dnara could gasp, she would have. It sounded like the wind’s voice, but her heart knew that wasn’t possible. Just as she could not feel the wind, even as it stayed by her side and followed her into Carn, she hadn’t heard it speak since the night of the shadow dragon.
‘See.’
See what? Her gaze held not but darkness, stone buildings and stars. And then her eyes closed, and she saw nothing at all.
‘Listen, and see.’
A knock echoed into the room beyond the window. The quill stopped its scratching. “Enter,” spoke the voice of Delmurra.
A door pushed open, its hinges squeaking in a want for oil. “Pardon my intrusion, Bena Mageraetas,” spoke a male voice with humbled respect lacing each word. “But we have finished the latest harvest.”
When the Wind Speaks (Starstone Prophecies Book 1) Page 36
