Marvi nodded, acquiescing. Obediently she put her hands behind her back, waiting for Taren to repeat his earlier statement. She knew it would come. She’d known it for years, had paved the way for it little by little. She had Taren in the palm of her hand, the prize she’d always wanted. All he had to do was ask.
“Jenthro needs to step aside. His reign has ended.”
“Agreed. But are you ready to step in and lead?” She already knew the answer—she had been instrumental in making sure that all obstacles in Taren’s way, including her own sons, had been eliminated in one way or another.
Taren closed his eyes, breathed in a deep, earthy breath, and nodded.
* * *
When Jenthro had appeared in the meadow below him, it had taken all of Gavin’s will power to not drop from the tree and attack the man. Elvira’s grip on the other outcasts had started slackening the moment the man had brought out the three sickly goats as payment for their performance in the Sidena Warren. Gavin had always wrestled with his temper. But within only a few moments Marvi had appeared and then Taren. His grandmother would be proud that he had kept his cool. The clans were at each other’s throats. That boded well for the outcasts currently scattered throughout the Oasis.
Gavin slid down the trunk of the tree, one of his hands wrapped around one of coconuts that grew at the top of the palm. His grandmother loved the milk hidden within, and Gavin enjoyed chewing the meat. It was a good source of continued moisture, though it wasn’t much needed in the Oasis. There was water everywhere here.
He hit the ground with a soft thump. Brushing his hair out of his eyes, he slipped his tattered sandals onto his feet and tugged on a thin vest, glancing to where the three Sidena had retreated only once to make sure they were gone. His anger still stormed within him, but it was secondary now, cloaked in a blanket of pragmatism that bore his grandmother’s admonishing tone.
“Do not let your emotions rule you,” she would say. “Rule them. Emotions are a fuel for action, not the cause of them.”
It had been her admonishing voice that had granted him the will to remain in the tree when Jenthro had appeared. She often told him of how the Rahuli clans were an arrogant folk, always looking down their noses at everyone around them. And when one is looking down one’s nose, one never thinks to look up.
The smell of change was in the air. Only five of the seven clans had made it into the Oasis. The Heltorin and the Londik were still missing. The other clans spoke of it in hushed whispers, fear and disbelief keeping them from saying what Gavin had known to be true a month into the Migration. The genesauri had gotten them. And the rest of the clans were afraid. They had all lost people this time. The Sidena lost more than most, though no clan had escaped the devastation. And there were so few of the outcasts left, too. Only a handful of families remained, though that was not too unusual. Outcasts like Gavin didn’t generally live long on the sands without the protection of a warren’s walls around them. Exposure would kill them before almost anything else. His grandmother had done much to unite them into a semblance of a clan of their own by making them performers and pooling resources, but her hold, tenuous as it had been before, was slipping.
The ground sprang back under his feet as he jogged and pushed him onward. He loved the Oasis: loved the green, loved the life, loved the abundance of food and water. It was much better than sand. Sand was hot, enveloping, and invasive. It washed over everything and granted it the color and pallor of death.
Since he belonged to no clan, he had to skirt around the areas where their patrols passed, hugging the Oasis wall until he came to a shallow depression in the rock. He bent down and slipped into the cave.
His grandmother lay in the darkness, huddled in a thin blanket that rose and fell as she breathed. Her back was to him, but he could tell that she was still losing weight. His grandmother had always been small, but he could see the bones of her ribs even through the blanket. Her grey hair, once the brilliant orange of flame, was thinning and now bleached white by age. There was almost more skin showing on her scalp than hair now. The sight made him sick, shame and anger forming into a knot in the pit of his stomach. This early Migration, this hell, had brought his grandmother low.
He didn’t want to wake her, but he knew that she needed to eat. If she didn’t start putting on more weight, she would never survive when the rains forced them out of the Oasis. He gritted his teeth and placed a light touch on her arm.
She came awake instantly, turning over to gaze at him with bright, intense eyes.
Those eyes. Gavin had never known a moment when those eyes didn’t seem as if they were peering into his soul, stripping away all the extraneous bits of superficial personality and laying bare his very being. Even now with her body succumbing to decay and age, her gaze pierced him and filled him with strength.
“Nana,” he said, smiling. “I brought you some coconut.”
He pulled one of the fruit from his bag and dug around in the sand until he found the sharp rock he’d hidden there. With the rock, he bored two small holes in the large fruit, one slightly smaller than the other. Her hands shook as she took the fruit Gavin offered her and greedily gulped down the milk.
He smiled at her, though his heart despaired. She was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it. Even the news he carried paled in the face of those black tidings. Pride sustained her now. Pride and stubbornness.
“Enough of that look,” she rasped between mouthfuls of milk. “You could give storm clouds lessons on how to look ominous. Don’t spoil that pretty face of yours on my account.”
Instead of cheering him up, the words only deepened his scowl.
“Tell me what news you’ve gathered then, little storm cloud.”
Despite himself, Gavin felt the corners of his mouth twitch. He told her what he’d seen.
She watched him intently as he spoke, eyes cool and penetrating, showing more life and fire than they had in several fortnights. It was as if, for a moment, the age vanished from them and he saw once again the woman who had spent years teaching him the ways of the sands and how to survive without the aid of clan. The coconut spilled from her hand as his account came to an end.
Before Gavin could protest, she seized him by his vest and pulled him down toward her with a strength that she had not had in years. Her eyes glistened with intensity and—Gavin was terrified to see—worry and no small amount of fear.
“This is your chance,” she said. Her voice was sharp and articulate, with none of the previous rasp. “Swear to me that you will complete your father’s task.”
“Nana,” he said, trying to tug free of her grip, “you know I don’t believe in the stories. It’s because of them that we’re outcasts. It’s because of them that you had to raise me instead.”
Her grip didn’t slacken. “Swear it to me, Gavin. By the stones and sands of the desert, swear it to me. If you love me, you will do as I say.”
“But—”
“Gavin,” she said. “Our people, the outcasts, they will not survive this change if they don’t have someone to lead them. I’m dying, Gavin. I can’t hold them together anymore. They need a strong arm to rely on. Your arm.”
Gavin tried to pull away, but her arms held him. He wondered how her small frame could manage it. He was not a leader. She was, as his father had been. He didn’t want this; he’d never wanted this.
“Don’t talk like that,” he said.
“Swear it!”
“I swear it, Nana,” Gavin said, pulling at her wrists. “Now lay back down and rest. Drink your milk. Getting all worked up isn’t good for you.” He had hoped the news would give her the strength to move around again, come back to him, and not send her into another fit. She needed rest.
“By the sands and stones of the desert?”
“Yes, by the sands and stones of the desert I swear I will complete my father’s task.” He tried not to roll his eyes and added under his breath, “Or more likely die trying.”
“Re
member the stories, little storm cloud,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Remember what I have taught you. Remember your oath. They will die without you.”
She smiled weakly and closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep.
Gavin adjusted the blanket over her frail form before turning to harvest the fruit from the rest of the coconut. His grandmother snored softly beside him, a single glistening tear trembling on her weathered cheek.
That night she died.
Chapter 6: Despair
“The pressure is taking its toll. My bones ache, my eyes droop. I feel that the clans are beginning to understand that there will be no escape from this. They begin to understand the enormity of my task. And I am coming to accept it, as well. I will continue, for there is no other cause left to me, but I know now that I may be proceeding in vain.”
—From the Journals of Elyana
Lhaurel woke with stiff muscles screaming protest at the abuse. She stretched to ease some of the soreness and rolled over, unsettling the thin wool blanket she’d found in the room they’d given her.
“You know, you talk in your sleep.”
Lhaurel jumped, head swiveling toward the voice. Kaiden stood just inside the doorway, leaning against the red sandstone wall, sword belted at his waist.
Lhaurel grabbed the blanket and pulled it up to her chin. He’d seen her in her smallclothes before, but this was different. This was her room. After the events of the previous day, she’d been given her own room to sleep in, which was far preferable to the eyrie floor.
“It’s polite to knock.”
Kaiden laughed. “I tried that, but you didn’t hear me, obviously. Get dressed. Makin Qays wants Tieran and I to take you out today.”
“Who?”
“You’ll meet them soon enough.” His smile said he was enjoying her discomfort.
Infuriating man.
“Wait for me outside, please,” Lhaurel said, with a pointed look at the door.
Kaiden laughed again but did as she asked.
Lhaurel dressed quickly, wishing she’d had time to get her clothes cleaned. They still smelled of aevian and sweat, an extremely pungent combination. After fastening the last button, curiosity trumping her soreness, she opened the door and stepped out into sunlight.
The room was almost as large as the eyrie but open to the sky in the center with a far more utilitarian purpose. Dozens of smaller caverns opened up along the walls at floor level. Above each of these smaller caverns ran a ledge that spiraled upward to form rows and rows of interconnecting tiers that ran up to the large, irregularly-shaped hole in the ceiling. There must have been over a hundred rooms and a dozen other passages, the former marked by thick wooden doors or curtains. Between the openings were etchings on the walls, faded and worn, that had tugged at Lhaurel’s memory when they’d brought her up here.
There was an overwhelming vastness to it that left Lhaurel in awe. She could have fit the entire Sidena clan three times over within them. It spoke of something ancient and powerful, something that predated the world that she currently walked.
“You ready, then?” Kaiden asked.
Lhaurel nodded and followed him around the ledge and down the ramp to the main floor. She only saw a few people busying themselves around the room. A pair of women was spinning yarn from a basket of raw wool very near the end of the ramp, whispering to each other and pointedly ignoring everything around them. She noted the lack of shufari curiously since she hadn’t bothered to find herself a new one. A handful of men sparred in a large ring marked in the stone near the middle of the chamber, swords ringing faintly as they came together. Looking closer, Lhaurel realized that one of the combatants was, in fact, a woman. Not just any woman, either.
“Is that—?” she began, but Kaiden, following her gaze, interrupted her before she could finish.
“That’s Khari, yes,” Kaiden said. “One of the finest swordsmen we have in the Roterralar, and a mystic, too.”
“Mystic?”
Kaiden chuckled and gestured for her to turn down a side passage leading away from the greatroom. “You’ll find out soon enough, I’m sure.”
Lhaurel bit off a response, annoyed with the vague answer, but let it go. She most likely would find out eventually. They were letting her be a part of the clan when they could have just as easily left her to die in the Oasis. She could give them a little more time, even if they had tried to trick her into escaping.
They turned down another passage, one that seemed vaguely familiar.
“Where are we going?”
“The eyrie.”
Lhaurel smiled, picking up her pace as recognition dawned on her. At the end of the passage, she turned right, passing Kaiden and pushing the door open. The familiar smells and sights of the eyrie greeted her, and a chorus of aevian voices sounded recognition. There was a soft thump of wings, and the fledgling dropped onto the sand near her, chirping softly.
“How are you, boy?” Lhaurel asked, reaching up to gently stroke the aevian’s beak. He chirped again and then scuttled away.
Aevians cried and chirped above and around them. A group of younger women were at work near them, butchering sailfin carcasses. Lhaurel wrinkled her nose against the smell of rust and mildew.
Kaiden walked up beside her, taking her arm in a firm grip and tugging her toward the eyrie’s cavernous opening. Lhaurel pulled her arm free but continued to walk alongside him.
Lhaurel looked in the direction they were heading and noticed Tieran putting harnesses on a pair of aevians. She recognized one of them: Kaiden’s aevian, Skree-lar, scratched at the rock with one foot, adjusting his wings around the harness and saddle Tieran had just put on his back. The other was probably Tieran’s. It was larger than Skree-lar and had a deep sandy-white coloring.
Tieran noticed their approach and gave a mock little bow. “Ah now, a pretty smile for a pretty face,” Tieran said, noticing her slow smile.
Lhaurel let the smile slip slightly, becoming a mere shadow of a grin. “Where’s mine?”
“Come on, little miss. I think we can find you something far softer to sit on.” His grin widened as if he’d said something funny.
“You’ll ride with me, Lhaurel,” Kaiden said brusquely. He pulled a pair of harnesses from a bin off to one side. Tieran chuckled and gave Lhaurel a wink before going over to the bin and pulling out a harness for himself.
Kaiden handed Lhaurel one of the harnesses and showed her how to put it on. Lhaurel had seen several of the other warriors putting harnesses on in the weeks she’d been in the eyrie on her own, but she hadn’t paid close enough attention to know where all the straps and buckles went. Kaiden had to reach out and correct her several times.
When the harness was finally attached to Kaiden’s satisfaction, and with many side comments from Tieran, which Lhaurel mostly ignored, Kaiden gave a low whistle, and Skree-lar lowered himself to the ground. Kaiden vaulted up onto the creature’s back and affixed two leads to the thick saddle there before turning back to Lhaurel and offering her a hand.
Tieran mounted his own aevian.
Lhaurel licked her lips. The last flight on Skree-lar’s back had been exhilarating. It was an experience she desperately wanted to repeat. But it had also ended very badly. She wasn’t sure she wholly trusted any of the Roterralar yet, and being up in the air would leave her with few options.
“Are you coming or not?” Kaiden asked.
“Maybe she’d be more comfortable over here with me,” Tieran said with a laugh. “Maybe you scared her last time.”
Kaiden rolled his eyes.
Lhaurel hesitated a moment and then accepted Kaiden’s hand, allowing him to pull her up behind him. He attached several of her leads to the saddle and then nodded to her. Lhaurel took a deep breath and wrapped an arm around his waist.
Flying was every bit as wonderful as it had been the first time. The takeoff was terrifying, but the sheer joy of flight quickly overcame the fear. Lhaurel whooped with delight as Skree-lar
banked into a strong gust of wind and started to climb higher into the sky.
Tieran, a few spans above them, laughed.
“Where are we going?” Lhaurel shouted into the wind.
Skree-lar’s wings hummed as they pushed them higher.
“You’ll see,” Kaiden shouted back.
Lhaurel groaned inwardly but allowed herself to relax into the joys of flight. Tieran took the lead, turning northward. Lhaurel studied the desert below her as they flew. Dunes of red sand moved across the desert below her, carried by the wind in an endless progression. Every now and then a bit of stoneway would appear to rise out of the sand like a silent testament of a forgotten time. Lhaurel glanced westward to where she could just make out the walls of the Oasis.
Saralhn.
The thought passed through her mind with a weight, dampening the joy of flight like a wet blanket over a fire.
Tieran whistled sharply from above them, and Skree-lar pulled his wings inward, turning into a steep dive. Lhaurel squealed, but the sound was ripped from her throat by the rushing wind. Her eyes watered, and she squeezed them tight. Her grip tightened around Kaiden’s waist in anticipation of what she knew would be coming next. Her stomach heaved when Skree-lar pulled out of the dive and landed on a rocky surface, judging by the sound made by Skree-lar’s talons.
Lhaurel opened her eyes. Recognition rolled over her immediately, her mind going numb. Kaiden unbuckled her harness from the saddle, but Lhaurel barely noticed. The cave-like entrance to the Sidena Warren lay before them. Memories of flashing teeth, pain, and death swam through her mind.
“What are we doing here?” she asked, slipping from Skree-lar’s back before Kaiden had unhooked himself.
Tieran dropped to the ground near her.
“We’re here to see what the genesauri left behind.”
Lhaurel swallowed and ran her tongue over dry lips.
Kaiden dropped to the ground next to her, sending sand and dust into the air. “Well, come on, then,” he said, striding forward.
Lhaurel followed, letting Tieran come behind. There was evidence of the sailfins’ passing all around them. Little piles and bursts of sand dotted the ground. Lhaurel was careful to avoid those. The passing of a sailfin left loose pockets a person could fall into if not careful. These were old and already mostly filled in, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.
Sharani series Box Set Page 7
