He took his time. It felt good to move with purpose.
CHAPTER 19
Ari felt as though he’d only been asleep for a few minutes when the screaming started. He threw himself up and out of bed, and he was a step and a half toward the door when it slammed open. A slender figure in a thick cloak raised the end of a spear to point at him. He knocked it out of his face on reflex and launched forward, slamming a shoulder into the figure’s chest.
“Kerys!” he shouted. “Eva!”
“Aristial, they’re—” Kerys was abruptly cut off in midsentence, but her voice had come from the first floor.
Ari glanced over at his opponent, who was somewhat recovered, though now weaponless. He recognized now that he’d mistaken wings for a cloak, as he had once before with Rin and her cadre. He was fighting a young Ravarian man clad in a black leather tunic and trousers.
Ari lashed out with a kick, more to force the Ravarian back than to cause real harm. It gave him the space he needed to hurry over to the stairs and head for the common room.
He found it in the midst of a similar breed of chaos. Kerys was bound with her wrists behind her back, and a Ravarian woman dressed in a toga had a hand clamped tightly over her mouth. She wore only her underwear, and the same was true for Eva, who was in the middle of fighting three other Ravarians simultaneously.
She was almost winning, too, moving with the same vicious elegance that made her such a beguiling training partner. The Ravarians’ ability to maneuver with their wings was their main advantage in combat, and it was rendered completely useless while fighting in such a confined space.
Ari was moving to help her when he felt the butt of a spear slam into the space between his shoulder blades, forcing him to his knees. Eva hesitated, pausing to consider whether to continue her fight or to help him. One of her Ravarian opponents slammed a kick into the side of her leg, throwing her off balance for another to tackle her and bring her down.
Two Ravarians were on top of Ari, but he still did his best to apply the deeply ingrained lessons from wrestling in Golias Hollow. He was gritting his teeth and grunting from the exertion, and it felt like he was starting to gain the upper hand when a loud feminine voice shouted in just the right tone to command attention.
He couldn’t understand her words, but he got the gist of what was being said. She was the one with a hand over Kerys’ mouth, and now held the edge of a thin kris knife to her neck. Ari froze in place, forcing the fight out of him as the two Ravarians he’d been wrestling with flipped him over and began binding his wrists.
“Mud and blood!” shouted Ari. “Hold on! Let’s talk about this!”
The Ravarians lifted him to his knees. His hands were firmly tied, and he only struggled for a couple of seconds before recognizing how futile it would be to expect to get loose. He glanced over at Eva and her blue eyes met his, one eyebrow raised in question.
He knew what she was asking. Ari could attempt to summon her to his hand in sword form, assuming that it was once again within the current capabilities of their bond. He gave a small shake of his head, knowing that even if he managed to summon her, and even if he cut his bonds loose, they’d still be able to threaten Kerys with violence to force him to behave.
Instead, Ari opted to attempt the diplomatic approach.
“I’m not an enemy,” said Ari. “I’ve helped your kind before. Rin, the Vereshi’s sister. I helped her survive against the vodakai.”
Of course, she’d stolen his enchanted Feathercloak in the aftermath, but she’d eventually helped him obtain an essence crystal to even the balance out.
“Rin,” he said, more slowly. “The Vereshi’s sister. She liked to call me chala. Rin. Vereshi. Chala.”
The young Ravarian man who’d first stormed into Ari’s room took a step toward him and pulled his arm back for a slap. Ari wasn’t defeated to the point of willingly taking abuse. He pushed upward with one leg, launching himself forward to slam an ungraceful headbutt into the Ravarian’s stomach. The Ravarian fell to the ground in a fit of coughs and dry heaves, but one of his comrades seized Ari by the shoulder and forced him back down to his knees.
The woman who’d been holding her knife to Kerys’ neck made her way over to him, stooping low enough to make eye contact with no apparent fear of him. She was actually quite pretty, with long blonde hair and a lean and muscular body. Three parallel scars marred one side of her face, as though she’d taken a deep scratch from something with long, sharp claws.
“Rinaria?” said the woman.
Ari gave a slow nod, hoping that she understood his meaning better than he understood hers. The woman stood up straight, shouted something in her native tongue, and began leading her companions outside.
“What are they doing?” whispered Kerys. The Ravarians had set her and Eva down next to Ari right outside the tower door.
“Looting our home,” said Ari. “Greedy bastards.”
He winced as he saw a Ravarian walking from the tower with his pack, which contained all of the treasure they’d found behind the three-keyhole door in Deepwater Spire. He hadn’t been expecting the gold and jewelry to do them much good in the wild, but it still offended him to see it being stolen from them.
They also took Kerys’ ornate short sword and one of the slabs of pork from inside the cold closet. The Ravarians seemed to have no inhibitions about eating raw meat, and two of the men passed the slab back and forth, taking large bites from it.
The Ravarian woman forced the three of them to their feet and then began marching them forward in the center of their group. There were thirteen Ravarians in total, enough to deflate any hope Ari might have had about attempting a heroic escape for himself and his friends.
The sun wasn’t visible through the jungle’s thick canopy, but he still noticed the change in illumination as late night shifted into early morning. The tension of being a captive made time pass at a crawl, but Ari still got the sense that they hadn’t been on the move for more than an hour or two when they came to a stop.
“We have arrived at their city, I believe,” whispered Eva.
“What?” Ari frowned at her. “There’s nothing here.”
“Look more closely, milord,” she said.
Ari blinked a couple of times before squinting into the distance. Beyond the trees ahead of them, he could just barely make out a tall stone wall heavily camouflaged by moss, hanging vines, and foliage.
The blonde Ravarian woman shouted another order, and they began moving again, heading for an ancient-looking metal door set into the wall which began rolling to the side as they approached. Ari spotted a group of four Ravarian men on the wall pulling a thick chain which he suspected was the mechanism through which the door operated.
The Ravarians led Ari, Eva, and Kerys into the city, though again, Ari was struck by how hard it was to recognize it for what it was. The trees hadn’t been cleared away, and if anything, they seemed larger and more numerous than the trees outside the wall. Most of the dwellings he could see at ground level were simple: mudhuts and lean-tos built against trees or under sections of exposed roots.
“Look,” whispered Kerys. “Up there!”
He glanced into the branches above and felt suddenly awestruck. Dozens of Ravarians flew through the trees, dodging and weaving and occasionally landing on the complex web of branches. There appeared to be more structures and buildings in the trees above them than at ground level, and Ari found himself wondering what the point of the wall even was if they were comfortable living so high up.
He received an answer to his question as soon as he turned his attention back down to the surface. They’d begun walking along the well-worn footpath that appeared to be the city’s central lane, and a number of Ravarians on the ground had come to satisfy their curiosity. Almost to a person, the Ravarians he saw moving on foot were either very old, very young, or handicapped in a visible way.
Ari felt a sudden appreciation for how challenging it still must have been for the Ravarian
s to find a way to live sustainably on the surface while under the threat of the Weatherblight. The option of flying away from the weather was only there for the healthiest of them.
He felt a certain grudging respect at the knowledge that they seemed to put at least some emphasis on protecting the most vulnerable among their community. Of course, Ari’s captors were still pushing him and his companions forward, and his opinion of them wavered slightly as he heard a few young children yelling jeers at them in a tone he recognized all too well from his time inside Golias Hollow.
They were led to stand in front of the stump of an ancient, enormous tree. There was a set of double doors set into the weathered wood, and the Ravarians brought Ari and the others through it and into the hollow interior.
It was dusty, and one of the Ravarians sneezed as they moved around the edge of the room lighting small oil lamps hanging from holders on the wall. Ari, Kerys, and Eva were made to kneel in the center of the room.
“Do you… do you think this is where they’ll kill us?” whispered Kerys.
“If they were going to kill us, milady, they would have done it where they first found us,” said Eva.
“Agreed,” said Ari. “Imagine how annoying it would be to have to scrub bloodstains off a wood floor inside an ancient tree stump, anyway.”
Eva and Kerys both shot him looks that told him that they didn’t much care for his humor at the moment.
A few more minutes went by before the door behind them finally opened again. A group of four people entered the hollow chamber and made their way around to the back of the room, where a large wooden throne had been carved out of the floor itself in a process that must have taken years, if not decades.
The woman in the lead was different from other Ravarians Ari had seen. Her facial features were elegant but soft, lacking the sharp beauty of many of the other women Ari had seen of her kind. Her brown hair hung in an elegant braid, and she wore a simple gown that reminded him of the silk-spun garments Kerys and her family used to make down in Golias Hollow.
All of that was secondary to how her wings looked. They were half the size of any of the other Ravarians Ari had seen and seemed more ornamental than functional. Though he found himself remembering what Rin had told him about how Ravarians fly, and their ability to tap into a magical wind affinity that gave them extra lift.
“Chala,” called a familiar voice. “Long time no see.”
It took Ari a few seconds to accept that he hadn’t just imagined Rin’s words. He stared in dumb recognition as she walked around the edge of the chamber and came to stand next to the throne.
CHAPTER 20
He spent the next few seconds furiously trying to remember every scrap of information Rin had told him about her people. She’d said that she was the Vereshi’s sister, but more importantly, that the Vereshi was half Ravarian and half Hume.
Rin seemed to be enjoying both Ari’s surprise and the general tension in the room. She was a gorgeous woman, with long, glossy black hair, sharp cheek bones and pale violet eyes. She was far bustier than most of her brethren, and she wore a black leather tunic of a cut that only a woman could have pulled off, given the way the plunging neckline teased into her cleavage.
There were two other Ravarians standing with the Vereshi, an older man with spots of grey in both his hair and his wings, and the same blonde Ravarian in the toga who’d been leading the group who’d raided his tower. Ari briefly made eye contact with each of them, unwilling to play the part of the desperate, defeated prisoner.
“You speak the lower tongue, Subvios,” said the woman in the throne.
“Yes?” Ari flashed a smile. “You made that a statement, I notice.”
The woman in the throne kept her stony expression fixated on him.
“My name is Tialese Velchin,” said the woman. “I am the Vereshi of the Ravarian Flock and the Queen of Varnas-Rav, the Island Nest. Who are you, and what is your purpose here?”
Ari was in the middle of choosing his words very carefully when Rin cut in.
“I can answer that, sister,” she said. “He is the one I told you about. The helpful and foolish boy from the caves. He calls himself Lord Aristial Stoneblood.”
A slight flush came to Ari’s face at her phrasing, and he had to tamp down on the urge to point out that other people occasionally called him that, too. Well, mainly just Eva, but still…
The Vereshi let out a soft, musical laugh. “Lord Aristial Stoneblood? Lord of where?”
Ari was about to make a joke when he felt Kerys nudge him in the shoulder.
“Ethereal Tower,” she whispered. “That’s what we should call it. I thought of it while I was on watch tonight, but never got the chance to tell you.”
“No whispering,” said the Vereshi. “Speak so we all can hear you.”
“She was simply reminding me of the extent of my lands,” said Ari. “I am Lord of Ethereal Tower.”
This time, the Vereshi did not laugh. Her gaze was filled with sharp appraisal, and Ari found it very difficult to meet her eyes for long.
“A fitting name for a tower that my scouts swore that they’ve never seen any trace of before in that region,” said the Vereshi. “How did you come to be here, and what is your purpose on this island?”
Ari considered a couple of different bluffs before deciding on one that was mostly just truth, exaggerated a little.
“My friends and I have been traveling since we discovered the secret of Ethereal Tower,” he said. “We came here hoping to trade some of the treasure we’ve recovered for basic goods and services.”
“You didn’t come here,” said the Vereshi. “My scouts brought you here.”
Ari rolled his eyes. “That’s a pointless distinction to make. We were just resting for the night and would have set out in the morning.”
“You must be very new to the surface, indeed,” said the Vereshi. “That just isn’t how trade works here. Tell me, chala, what’s to stop me from keeping the gold coins and jewels that we found in your carry bag and killing you?”
“A healthy appreciation for justice and morality?” said Ari.
Rin let out a genuine, chirping laugh. She reached her hand over and set it on her sister’s shoulder.
“I must admit, sister, that I would gladly speak in the defense of this man,” she said. “He might be dense and foolish, but he could serve a use here. We’ve come across few stray humans since the feud with Cliffhaven began and the Fairweather Fleet turned inward. It seems unwise to throw away ones that have landed so easily in our lap.”
“What use would they be to us?” asked the Vereshi.
“Breeding, for one,” said Rin. She flashed a tiny half-smile while holding Ari’s gaze, and despite the violent tension in the room, he still felt a flicker of excitement.
“Our bloodline is already strong,” said the Vereshi. “Despite what some would suggest, I see no need for Ravarian-Hume hybrid children, let alone full-blooded Hume.”
“Even though you, yourself are—”
“Sister,” said the Vereshi, cutting Rin off. “I know what people are whispering. Because I now lead, and have done so for so long, there are many who claim it must be because of my heritage. The symbolism inherent in allowing another to birth a hybrid will only brew conflict amongst us.”
She stared at her sister for a couple of seconds, forcing Rin to look away. Ari caught the briefest glimpse of Rin rolling her eyes before she held up a finger and continued.
“Beyond that,” said Rin. “He has other, more practical uses. He is an experienced enchanter, as I’ve explained to you before. He is the one who I commissioned to craft the Feathercloak.”
Ari felt his jaw tighten as he devoted every ounce of his willpower to keep himself from pointing out she’d stolen the Feathercloak from him. She was on his side, he reminded himself, at least as much as any of the Ravarians were.
“You’ve seen how the Feathercloak aids me in flight,” said Rin. “Even during the time when
my wing was damaged, it still added to my wind affinity enough for me to achieve lift.”
The Vereshi’s expression didn’t change, but Ari noticed the slightest fidget of one of her hands as it touched the feathers of her stunted wings. He’d forgotten just how devious Rin could be when she wanted something.
“Is this true?” asked the Vereshi. “We have an enchanting altar here in Varnas-Rav. Could you produce more of these ‘feathercloaks,’ given sufficient resources and time?”
“Absolutely,” said Ari. “Though the supplies might be hard to come by. I’ll need cloaks that are suitable for enchanting, along with—”
“Bring them to the holding cells,” said the Vereshi. “I must speak of this with my advisors.”
The holding cells were outside the massive tree trunk, dug deep into the ground along one of the trenches left by an old, gnarled root. Ari, Kerys, and Eva were all pushed into the same one after having their wrist bindings removed, and a heavy wooden door with iron bars was slammed closed behind them.
The cell was dark and filled with the same residual layer of dust that had been present in the interior of the hollow tree trunk. Ari guessed that most of the official meetings of the Ravarians probably took place higher up in the trees rather than at ground level.
“This is my fault,” whispered Kerys. “I was on watch. I didn’t see the Ravarians until they were already upon me, and there wasn’t any time for me to even shout a warning.”
“It’s alright.” Ari put an arm around her shoulders. “Given how many of them there were, I doubt we would have stood a chance even with time to prepare.”
Eva was over by the door, examining the slits between the bars of the window.
“I could easily slip through this in my sword form,” she said. “I would still have to locate the key once on the other side, but I think we might have a reasonable chance at escaping.”
Vision Voyage (The Weatherblight Saga Book 2) Page 11
