Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2)

by Jennifer Melzer

  Those were her last words to him before she sent him on his way. The next morning, she was gone.

  Bren arrived at the stairs leading into the lyceum and glanced up to find Hrafn spiraling in for a landing through the window of his quarters below the library. The half-elf nodded silently at the guards posted outside and climbed toward the doors. They opened before he could reach for them, swinging inward to reveal the archmage.

  “I was beginning to think you would avoid sleep altogether on this night, Brendolowyn,” the old man scolded, stepping aside so he could enter the tower. “The streets at this hour are no place for a mage embarking on the most important journey he will make in his lifetime.”

  “I doubt any one of us will sleep much this night, Archmage,” he confessed. “The entire city is restless with thoughts of our departure. I can feel their agitation squeezing the night like a fist.”

  “Regardless, you should at least try to sleep. You depart in just a few hours. All of your training and magic will be worthless without the rest required to wield it. Would you have a sleeping draught? I always keep a spare in my quarters. I can fetch it for you right now.”

  Audun meant well, and Bren knew he was right, but try as he might, sleep would evade him through the long hours of the night, and no draught in the world would change that. “No thank you, Archmage. My body will yield naturally to rest when it is ready.”

  “I do hope you’re right.”

  He climbed the stairs quietly, winding up and around until he arrived on the twelfth floor of the tower and stepped onto the landing. He circled left and headed toward his room, withdrawing the lantern outside his door from its hook and carrying it inside. Its sparse light spread through the darkness to illuminate the raven perched atop his cage in the corner.

  Hrafn croaked when he saw him, circling on his perch and spreading his wings wide before drawing them back against his sleek body.

  “If only I had your wings, my friend, I’d fly far, far away from here,” he murmured, setting the lantern onto the desk and then reaching up to lower his hood around his shoulders. “Though I suppose not even your wings could spirit me away from things I have no desire to face.”

  The bird did not answer, but lowered his beak to preen the feathers above his scaled legs, fluttering and fluffing them out before combing and arranging them into perfect order.

  Bren gathered the folds of his robe in his hands and drew them upward, lifting it over his chest and stretching out of it. The cool night air drifting in through the open window nipped at his naked skin, a series of goose bumps writhing along his flesh and raising the thin hairs on his scarred and tattooed arms and chest. He laid his robes on the back of the chair and stalked toward the window, standing in front of it in nothing but his loincloth and ignoring the discomfort of the cold as he looked out over the endless white land beyond the walls of Dunvarak.

  The snow was red as blood beneath Kierda’s light, and the vision gave him pause. How long before it was blood staining the snow beyond their walls? How long before their haven was not their own anymore? Would it happen while he was away? Would the armies of men come while he was unable to stand beside his true brothers in battle and protect their city with his magic?

  Shuddering away from that disturbing thought, he turned his gaze south. The direction they would travel come morning. Toward the sea and along the frigid coastline where he woke so many years ago as if from a fevered dream. The smell of the arena, the burn of magical fire and singed hair still lingered in his nostrils, the sweat of fever and ache of death still stiff in his bones. He tried to lift his head, only to be overpowered by the cleansing scent of the cold, hungry sea lapping at his bare feet.

  It roared fiercely as it breathed in, the water receding from the shoreline in a loud hush that gurgled and sputtered when the breaking waves collided and spilled froth over his feet when it exhaled. Was he dead? Thrown upon Alvariin’s great white shore to await judgment, or shunned by the mother of his mother’s people and left to rot without acknowledgment?

  It is not yet your time, Brendolowyn.

  The sound of her voice startled him from the confusion in his mind, but he recognized it immediately. It was the light, the vision that came to him in the moment before death claimed him, enveloped him in its perfect warmth and stole him away from the arena before the necromage he’d been battling could take his soul. He never expected to wake from that beautiful fantasy; he believed even as it wrapped around him it was little more than a comfort dream carrying him home.

  Yet there he was on the cold shores of some distant sea that smelled the way his father used to smell in his mother’s memories of him.

  Foreign, but clean and comforting, he lifted his face from the craggy shore and turned his head toward the voice that spoke to him. He saw only light, brilliance brighter than a thousand suns, in the shape of a woman kneeling in the sand just a hand’s reach away from him.

  “You… you saved me,” he choked. “Wh—who are you?”

  Someone who will always love you the way the sea loves the shore, even as our love was never meant to be.

  “What is your name?”

  Lorelei.

  The light enveloped him, and though he was naked and cold, his body broken from the arena, all he could feel was her warmth as a thousand memories never meant to be made passed from her and into him. The selfish transgression that brought them together, the comfort he brought her in her darkest hour, the way he made her feel almost whole again when all hope was lost. Memories haunted him when he slept, recollections of a life the seer said he was not meant to have. Memories broken by the urgent peck of his raven’s beak upon his skin, waking him from fevered dream and urging him to rise before the tides swallowed him and carried him out to sea.

  When he lifted his head again the rocky sands were empty, save for a single pair of footprints walking away from the shore, toward the yellowed grass and golden sea reeds dancing in favor of the wind’s whistling tune. The throaty call of a raven overhead brought joy to his heart, its shadow blocking out the light of the sun. He lifted squinting eyes toward the sky, the elation he felt making him tremble as tears filled his eyes.

  Hrafn.

  From time to time during his enslavement he’d stared through the thin bars of his prison, toward the sky in hopes of catching a glimpse of his friend. He’d thought the raven captured, at times he even feared him dead, but convinced himself over the years he would have felt such a loss in the depths of his defeated soul. But there he was sailing on black wings spread wide, tilting his body into the currents of the wind.

  Follow him, the strange voice bid. Follow him and he will take you home.

  “Will you be there?” He felt a fool, a delirious and stupid fool for talking to the wind, and the wind never answered, but at least he knew her name.

  Lorelei.

  One day he would find her.

  Love unyielding, like the waves over the shore…

  Love never meant to be his.

  “Will you be there?” he called out again, but the light did not answer.

  He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath until he released it. The heavy sigh that followed deflated his chest. He withdrew from the window, closed the shutters and headed toward the bed. He sat down at first, stretching and tilting his head along the breadth of his shoulders until he could feel the tangle of braids he wore tickling across his mid-back. He drew in another deep breath, filling his lungs while emptying his mind. It was the only way to stay true to the path he promised the seer he would walk, to honor the last words he spoke to his mother before he left Til Harethi to find his father in the world beyond their shores.

  “I will make you proud, Mamiir.”

  He failed his mother when he left home. He never found his father, barely made it a stone’s throw away from Til Harethi before he was captured by orc slavers and forced into the battle arena. But there was one way he could live up to the promise he made to his mother. One way
he could make her proud.

  He would do what he was meant to do, make a sacrifice that would shatter his heart into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the four winds like so many stars in the night sky. He would give up the one thing he wanted more than anything else: Lorelei.

  Lowering his flattened palms to the tops of his thighs, Brendolowyn closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath and silently prayed for sleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The cold floor was stiff beneath his aching back no matter how he maneuvered his body. The muscles ached like an old man’s, spreading dull but painful throbs and pulses through the muscle and deep into his bones. The twitches matched the beating of his heart in much the same way the vessel attuned to Lorelei’s life force when she was near him. Rolling onto his side with a huff, his brother groaned in his sleep beside him and pushed the lithe frame of his body closer to the wall. He was already pressed against it, no small thanks to Finn’s insistence on sleeping in the pantry cupboard with Vilnjar instead of squeezing into bed with Lorelei.

  Just the thought of her made his already tense muscles tighten, his jaw clenching against the self-imposed restraint. He shouldn’t have to distance himself, especially not on a night when she no doubt needed comfort and reassurance more than anything, but the restless wolf beneath his skin wanted far more from her than she was willing to give. It hungered for her, pacing the strict confines of his body as it brooded over her denial of him and sent blatant signals that could no longer be ignored.

  He blamed it on denial of transformation. Despite the restrictions he faced in Drekne, Finn was not one to avoid embracing his beast. Balancing his time between the man and the wolf made it easier for him to think, made his mind clearer. It had only been a few days since his last transformation, but the tangle of emotions and desires he felt made it seem longer.

  The wolf was convinced it needed her. Wouldn’t rest until it had her right where it believed she belonged, but the rational part of his brain knew taking her in any capacity before she was ready was an unforgivable act. One Finn could never commit. There were cultures that executed men for taking from a woman against her will, even one who rightfully belonged to the man. And though he liked to think she belonged to him, he knew it was just the opposite.

  It was Lorelei who owned him; it would always be that way.

  And she would never forgive him for pushing her into something she wasn’t ready for. His primal impulses would have to wait; the beast would just have to suffer. It did not like suffering, it liked denial even less, but surely it understood the care and keeping of his mate’s soul was far more important than satisfying a bodily urge they had the rest of their lives to attend to.

  Maybe… If he lived.

  So while he tried to get comfortable and tune out the worries and fears of embarking on a quest that might very well end with his death, the beast paced the walls of his skin, angry and bitter because the man was in control.

  When he heard the floorboards beyond the pantry creak with movement, he started to sit up and cocked his ear toward the sound. His brother mumbled and smacked his lips beside him, but he ignored Vilnjar and attuned his senses to the house around him. In the room where he’d left her, Lorelei was awake. She’d been sleeping. Even with the distance he’d put between them she was still close enough he could feel the rhythms of her heart slow and her body relax into sleep. She slept fitfully, felt as restless as he did, and soon after falling asleep she’d woke again feeling panicked and agitated.

  Instinct bid him to go to her, but he fought the impulse. It would not do her any good if he came rushing to her every time he thought she needed him, would it? One day he might not be there at all to answer her emotional call; maybe it was better if he never let her get used to him in that way.

  Easier said than done. It felt like half an hour passed while he battled with himself, arguing against making the best of what time they had and sparing her from getting attached to him. The sound of footsteps creaking through the house was followed by voices. One of those voices belonged to Lorelei, the other Logren, and though he still wanted to go to her, just sit with her and quell some part of the beast well beyond placating, he didn’t rise.

  He left her to her brother’s care, gave her the time she’d been silently longing for so she might actually get to know the man she shared a father with.

  Logren was the one person he didn’t selfishly begrudge her time with. Everyone else who wanted to be near her got under his skin, the mage in particular. She’d all but admitted to feeling something for the half-elf, who made no effort to hide his smiles or flirtations. It was something she couldn’t quite explain, and though he knew acting irrationally about emotions she couldn’t control did very little to strengthen his position in her life, he’d never exactly been good when it came to self-restraint or being rational himself.

  He’d also never felt as close to anyone as he felt to her, and the fact that she didn’t return his feelings with the same vigor made it difficult.

  She belonged to him… No, he belonged to her, he reminded himself, but it didn’t stop him from longing for the day when it became a mutual belonging, assuming he actually lived through retrieving the Horns of Llorveth.

  Not only was there a possibility she might not choose him for her mate, but the seer told her only two of them would return from their journey, a prophecy Hodon also shared with him when he asked if Finn was as committed to the actualization of Lorelei’s purpose as he was to her. There was no guarantee the one who would not return was Finn, but the tangle of fear and nervousness churning in his gut was enough to convince him he should be worried.

  His days with Lorelei were numbered. No matter the cost or consequences, he was her mate. He would follow where she went, lay his life down so she might live, give up everything for her if that was what was required of him. He just hoped there was time before he died to show her how much she meant to him, that even though it sometimes seemed they hardly knew each other at all, he loved her with every part of himself and had since long before he ever saw her face.

  Finn rolled onto his side, elbow nudging into the small of his brother’s back as he wriggled and squirmed and tried to block out the sound of their voices in the other room. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the constant reminder she was awake, just a few steps away and in desperate need of comfort goaded him into flopping again, this time edging his back into Vilnjar and startling him from his own restless sleep.

  “Would you be still,” he hissed through teeth tightly ground. “Every time I start to fall asleep you jam some part of your oafish body into me and drag me back from that comfort.”

  “Sorry.” Finn fidgeted, the tightly woven fabric of his shirt riding up his back and exposing bare skin to the cold floorboards below him. He’d been laying there long enough the floor should have been warm, but he could feel the frigid air rising up through the boards, tickling across bare skin like a teasing breath. “I can’t get comfortable.”

  “Then maybe you should find somewhere else to sleep,” his brother grunted.

  “Maybe you should move over a little. Give me some more space.”

  “Give you space?” Vilnjar shot up from where he lay like an arrow leaving a crossbow, and though the pantry cupboard was dark, Finn could feel his brother’s eyes on him. Glaring, seething, the pump of his blood escalated with frustration. “If I give you any more space, I’ll have to leave. Go back to your room and sleep in the chair beside her bed if you’re that worried about sleeping in the bed with her.”

  “I can’t,” he mumbled, scooting a few inches away out of guilt.

  “Of course you can. Just sit down, stretch out your legs and close your eyes. You’ll be asleep before you know it. Her nearness will comfort you.”

  “No, it won’t. Just being near her is what’s driving me crazy.”

  “Oh for the love of the ladies,” he moaned. “Do you think you’re the first man who’s ever had to wait for something he wan
ted? It’s called self-control, Finn. Exercise it!”

  “I’m doing the best I can,” he grunted. “Do you know how hard it is to be so near her all the time, to not be able to just run my fingers through her hair?”

  “Actually,” Vilnjar started, “I do.” He shifted onto his back, nudging shoulders with Finn as he tried to make himself comfortable again. “Something happened to me after we came here,” he went on, his voice a gruff whisper. “Something so unexpected I almost don’t know how to deal with it.”

  That was disconcerting, especially for Finn. All his life there didn’t seem to be a single thing his brother couldn’t handle simply by setting his mind to the task and working through it. To hear Vilnjar say he didn’t know how to deal with something made Finn’s stomach tremble with undeniable nerves no amount of careful breathing seemed able to placate.

  It did explain his brother’s odd behavior. Shortly after arriving in Dunvarak, after sitting down to council with Hodon, Vilnjar grew almost flippant in his disregard for everything around him. In an almost childish huff he walked out of the meeting, refusing to partake, and later when the two of them finally washed the road from their skin in the bathhouse, Vilnjar all but admitted he could no longer stand in the way of Finn’s destiny. He could not control Finn, and it was pointless to even continue trying. He was grown; it was time to set him free.

  When asked if it didn’t bother him his little brother might very well die at some point during the long journey that lay ahead, Vilnjar simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “Anyone of us might die at any time, Finn. There is nothing I can do to stop the hand of death. Nothing I can do to keep you alive if it is the will of the gods.”

  It was the most shocking thing he’d ever heard come out of his brother’s mouth. Vilnjar, who didn’t like disorder and chaos, who couldn’t stomach the idea of leaving things to the gods, was letting go of the reins and leaving his brother’s future to fate. He was a strong advocate for free will, adamantly denying the gods had any part to play in their affairs at all, and though he’d started to come around a little bit after the very essence of their god filled Lorelei’s body in the council chamber in Drekne, he was still pretty solid in his beliefs. He’d done nothing but argue theology and free will with Logren since the two were reunited, proving his beliefs were only shaken, not changed.