“And you can expect the same from me.”
Shrugging, as if he didn’t care one way or the other, Finn dropped his hands into the snow and pushed upright until he was standing. “It doesn’t matter either way to me. I don’t need you to watch my back. I can take care of myself and the princess too.” He lingered for a moment at the edge of the fire, then turned into the tent behind him, ducking inside and letting the flap flutter at his back.
He really was as clueless as he was arrogant. He had no idea what awaited them on the road ahead, of the dangers they were meant to face and how close they might all come to losing their lives before achieving their task. Brendolowyn’s awareness wasn’t much clearer, but he knew the danger existed, knew if he didn’t change the things he’d done in the past, Finn would die and it would be his fault.
Brendolowyn turned to watch the trolls pace just beyond the barrier, listened to the dreadful sound of their huffing and moaning as they dragged clubbed weapons across the frozen surface beneath their stomping feet.
He was no better than Finn. He’d been contemptible in his replies, allowing his obvious emotions to rise to the surface in the same way he’d belittled the U’lfer.
It shouldn’t have bothered him, Finn’s asking about the arena. After all, Brendolowyn himself brought it up, made it known to them he’d once been enslaved by his own foolishness and forced to do unspeakable things just to stay alive. Things that made him feel dirty and foul, that made it hard for him to sleep at night without waking in a cold sweat, his heart racing as memories of the most awful time in his life plagued his dreams.
For years after escaping death’s reach, he’d tried to hide from the memories of his old life, of the unforgivable atrocities he’d committed in order to survive, but the scars ran deep, etched into both his skin and his soul. They haunted memories and dreams and every time they rose to the surface of his mind, depression plagued him and made it difficult to feel the warmth and love of those around him. He’d convinced himself so long ago he didn’t deserve to be loved, to feel like he was part of a family or a community, and had he managed to escape without the Light of Madra’s help, he might have spent the rest of his days in hermitage, alone, suffering and dwelling on the horrors of his past.
But she’d shown him love, pointed him toward the gates of Dunvarak and they opened to him, welcomed and embraced him. He’d found family there, and purpose, and though he’d never forgotten, never let go of the darkness still festering inside him, for a time he was part of something he actually thought he could be proud of.
He could change things. He could let go of the darkness, do the right thing. It wouldn’t be easy, not while the company of an arrogant wolf, but he supposed he had to be nearby if he was meant to keep him alive.
For Lorelei, he’d keep the wolf alive, and only for her. Even as he knew he could bring her some semblance of joy if given the chance. It wasn’t his place to bring her joy, no matter how much he wanted to be that person for her, the one she clung to as the world crumbled to dust all around them.
Muffled voices rose from the tent, tension and argument that made the acids in his stomach turn sour. He would never take her closeness for granted, never provoke her and make her feel the way Finn did every time he bickered with her. It seemed all the two of them ever did from the first moment he met them both. Quarrel and argue with one another until the only recourse was temporary silence.
How could they belong together when they couldn’t even stand to be in the same tent with one another for five minutes without tearing into each other? It seemed absurd.
Those thoughts signaled Yovenna’s last words to him again, her insistence he do what he was meant to do and nothing else, a reminder: it wasn’t his place to determine who Lorelei was meant to spend the rest of her days with. The only thing he need remember was it wasn’t him. She wasn’t meant to be with him, no matter how much he wanted her.
Besides, it was irrational to want her anyway. The girl in that tent, she wasn’t someone he knew. Not really, not yet. The woman he knew hadn’t come into being yet, hadn’t risen from the ashes of despair to stand beside him in a world gone wrong. And she never would. She wasn’t supposed to. It was his job to make sure his Lorelei didn’t exist at all, and it was an unnatural thing for him to feel so strongly about someone she was never meant to be.
He reached for the stick he’d been using to stoke the fire, poked it into the hottest part, where the coals were pale blue and stark white and watched as the logs shifted and sent sparks raining upward toward like stars. They burned to ash when they met with the barrier surrounding the camp. Those ashes trickled and fell, drifting back in and settling like black snow upon the ground.
It did not become a man to wallow in sorrows not even his to bear. Yovenna told him not to play the martyr, to accept his place and his task and feel pride in the strength it would take to see such things done, but no matter how he tried to find acceptance, it eluded him.
He only wanted a chance, a fair chance. He’d do his part, protect the U’lfer even though he knew he had no chance at all with her as long as Finn lived. It would have been nice to know when all was said and done, when the time came for her to make her choice, she chose him instead of a half-cocked boy who thought he was a man.
But he wouldn’t hold his breath, wouldn’t wait for something to happen that was never meant to be.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The sun seemed a distant memory hidden behind dark, heavy clouds canvassing the sky like an artist’s palette awash in blacks and greys. When Lorelei could make out the edges of silver light eking desperately through the breaks, the rays did not offer warmth or comfort, only dull light that reached across the foggy landscape, stretching on forever in front of them.
The All-Creator knew everything under His domain, for His single eye was broad in the seeing, and the path she walked was known to Him. It was only a matter of time, she thought, before He withdrew the favor of His light from her forever, and then she would know only darkness.
Lorelei lifted her face toward the sky again, ignoring the smatter of cold pellets dancing with pin-sharp accuracy across the slim areas of exposed skin. She had to shield her eyes to protect them, one hand lifted across her brow, but it did little to improve her actual focus on the lack of road ahead.
All morning sleet fell in great sheets that froze their cloaks and matted their horses’ manes to until balls of ice cracked melodically with every step. The intermittent pellets occasionally mixed with fat, slushy flakes of snow, making the whole world around them slick and dangerous to walk.
The draft horses from Dunvarak were bred for the frigid terrain. Their thick coats keeping them warm and their shoes designed with removable brass weights that provided a certain amount of control over their movement through the ice and snow. Their mounts did not move at a pace much quicker than the travelers themselves might have made if walking, but it was a relief not to have to attempt the slippery landscape. She couldn’t imagine how many broken bones, bumps and bruises would have resulted from even trying.
She was already dreading the effort it would take to set up camp when they were finally ready to give up for the day. Lifting her face toward the sky again, she searched the dark clouds for signs of their clearing, but they rolled for endless miles, growing darker and more ominous the further south she could actually see.
Storms gathered over the southern sea, the very sea they were traveling toward in hopes of finding a ship to grant them passage to Port Felar. Brendolowyn believed that part of their quest was a waste of time, explaining the treacherous waters leading to Rimian were laden with sharp boulders of ice, held aloft by the salt of the sea, that would tear even a warship to shreds. Trader vessels traveled to Port Felar the long way around, rather than risking it, but occasionally Kivtaryn pirates braved such waters, if the promise of the plunder to be found there far outweighed the risks it would take to reach it.
Beneath her stiff cloak she shivered and beg
an to doubt they would ever make it to the place they were meant to be. They’d either freeze to death along the way, or slip and break their necks on the ice—neither of which sounded like a very glamorous or heroic way to die.
She found herself forming silent words of prayer through blue and trembling lips, appealing to Heidr, though she doubted He would listen to one forged to walk a path meant to destroy His plans, to the Ladies and Alvariin, whom she’d always included in her prayers. On instinct she almost muttered prayer to Foreln, but she immediately replaced Him in her line of prayers with Llorveth. She’d not spent time in prayer to Llorveth, and did not know the first thing about honoring the mighty stag who’d seeded the U’lfer and brought men like her true father and Finn into the world.
Llorveth, who sometimes came to her in her dreams, carried her across the stars upon His back and whispered the secrets of the universe to her soul. She couldn’t help but find herself wishing she could remember the secrets of her dream, but all she could feel of Llorveth was the residue left behind during the brief moment in Drekne when the god rose up and swarmed from Rhiorna’s dying body into hers before spiraling toward the stars and leaving her utterly alone and grasping at the threads of wisdom she’d held in her hands for the blink of an eye.
It felt as though none of the gods were listening. Since she’d sat down in the seer’s cottage and listened to the prophecies Yovenna saw for her, she prayed and waited for some sign from Llorveth, from Madra, from any of the divines at all, but nothing came. She resigned herself to the somber thought that none of them actually cared, and probably wouldn’t care unless she wavered from the path she was meant to walk. It was a sobering reality that made her feel bitter and defiant, and somewhere in the back of her mind there were whispers asking why she should do anything for the gods at all.
Considering everything expected of her, divinity should be more forthcoming about the path it expected her to travel and the deed laid upon her, but it was about more than just the gods and she knew it. She needed to think outside the greater expectation of the task.
The people of Dunvarak were counting on her to bring back the Horns of Llorveth. With those horns in hand, their wolf spirits would wake and rise and make them whole people—even her. The thought stirred something feral inside her, something she could almost feel pacing the confines of her body like a caged beast sniffing its own freedom.
It was terrifying, and she really didn’t know if she wanted to unleash the beast from its cage at all.
Before departing, she’d asked her brother in the temple, “Does Llorveth ever speak to you?” She’d been holding her breath before she spoke, and as the words left her she swallowed the air inside her. It hurt, like an air bubble caught between her throat and lungs. Without the undercurrent of Finn’s heart, which she could always feel beating whenever he was near her, she noticed for the first time just how hollow she felt, how small and terrified.
When Logren looked up at her she avoided his eyes at first, not wanting to see the truth in them. As he moistened his lips to reply, she drew her gaze up and stared at him. That man, who looked like the father she had never known, who believed with all his heart and soul she’d somehow reached a hand through time to save him, didn’t have the answers she was looking for. Somewhere underneath his tough exterior and expectations, Logren expected her to know what to do, and the fact that she didn’t have a clue terrified him more than he would say.
“No,” he’d said, and then he stood up, lowered a large hand onto her shoulder and drew her against his chest. “But He will speak to you when the time is right,” he promised. “When you most need to hear His voice, He will speak. I know He will. You just have to be willing to listen.”
She agreed to embark upon a fool’s quest, putting her trust in Llorveth the minute she’d crossed into the Edgelands. She didn’t know how much more open she could be before He offered reassurance. A dream, a whisper, something she could grasp onto as she felt her way through the darkness spanning her path.
It had been four days since they departed from Dunvarak; Llorveth offered her nothing. No whisper in the howling wind to reassure her. No dreams during troubled sleep to tell her she was on the right path. No promises she would be rewarded for whatever sacrifices she was forced to make along the way. She didn’t even care about being rewarded, not really. She just wanted to know she was doing the right thing, that no one she grew to care about was going to die for her along the way.
And that was all she thought about during the murky silence clinging to them as they traveled through the tundra. The lightheartedness they’d embarked with was gone by the middle of their second day of travel, replaced by growing tension, foul tempers and cold more bitter than any she had ever endured in her life.
“We should make camp soon,” Brendolowyn called out to her. “With a good night’s rest and favorable weather, we should reach the coastline late tomorrow.”
“How can you even tell where we are?” Finn mumbled disbelief. “I can’t even see my hand in front of my face.”
The gloves she wore hardened, the stiff leather grinding and squeaking whenever she tightened her hands on the slick reins. She could hardly imagine how the horses felt. Her brother assured her before they’d left the beasts were bred for purposes such as hers, long travel through the tundra. Both their coats and the muscles of their legs thicker, they would carry them as far as they needed to go and back again when all was said and done.
As they grew nearer the coast, Brendolowyn said the temperature shifted, but she didn’t know how he could tell. It was still freezing cold, varying between ice and snow, sometimes cold, bitter rain, but the wall of fog was always there, so thick and impenetrable they could barely see each other through it.
Sleeping night after night on the hard, frozen ground and the dampness of the air made her body ache like an old woman’s. Every one of her joints cracked and popped each time she stretched or moved, but she was careful not to complain. Finn did enough moaning for both of them, and if she made mention it would just start him griping about more things they had no control over.
She stared out into the vast nothing, seeing no discernible landmarks or signs they were growing nearer to the coast. Even the trees were sparsely positioned, tall and lonely with so much space between them it made her feel sad in ways she couldn’t explain.
How could Brendolowyn even be sure they were heading in the right direction, much less know how soon they would reach their current destination?
“I have traveled this path more times than I can count,” he assured her, as if he’d heard her thoughts. “I know the way like I know the back of my own hand.”
“You can’t even see the back of your hand in this fog,” Finn reiterated.
Four days she listened to the two of them bicker whenever the chance presented itself, which she supposed was a delightful change from Finn bickering with her. They disagreed about everything from the size of the trolls parading around their camp in the darkness, to the frequency of the wind’s keening, and just when it seemed the two of them ran out of things to challenge each other with, they invented something new… the difference between sleet and freezing rain, the color of the clouds and what their darkness meant.
She hadn’t taken Brendolowyn for a braggart when she first met him, but something about the way Finn seemed to challenge the half-elf certainly brought it out in him. Like two boys in a pissing contest, they argued constantly about things neither of them actually even cared about just for the sake of argument, and it was driving her mad.
If they were vying to impress her, both of them were falling short of their mark, she thought, rolling her eyes and releasing a silver-puffed sigh of annoyance.
“I do not need to see to know we are on the right path.” Bren’s voice was muffled by the scarf wrapped around his face, and little more than the tip of his nose stuck out from the shadow of his hood.
Finn cleared his throat on her left. He looked little more than a ma
ssive fur beast enshrouded in heavy fog beside her, his horse struggling to keep its footing while bearing his heavy weight across the slick ice.
“I travel this road at least once each year.”
She looked curiously toward him, wondering what purpose such a journey served in the past, but he didn’t offer further explanation and she didn’t press the matter. Maybe he kept in contact with the Alvarii people hidden below Port Felar, she thought, or maybe he went on trading expeditions to the port.
Drawing back on the reins, her horse dug heavy shoes into the ice. Still studying the sky, she guessed it was only midday; there were at least a few hours of daylight left, but the thought of getting out of the cold, of stripping off her ice-heavy cloak and letting it thaw and dry beside the fire started to win out. Maybe a fire would melt icy tempers as well, and she could have some much desired peace.
“We will make camp then,” she decided, tugging back on the horse’s reins and listening to its hoofs skid as it tried to stop. It regained its footing, tramping down hard on the ice and jolting her to a halt that thrust her forward.
Finn coughed beside her, a rattling in his chest that echoed through the winded silence. She wondered if he was getting sick, then thought it was a wonder they weren’t all sick from the damp and cold. He slid down off his horse with a heavy thud, steadied himself and approached with careful steps on her right side. He held hands out to help her down and she gripped them in her own. She felt the tight muscles of her thighs, aching from days of riding, tremble in protest with the movement as she brought her leg up and slid down in front of him. Unsteady as she found her footing, her leather boots slipped on the ice, but Finn dug his hard fingers into the fleshy part of her upper arm and held her against his chest to keep her upright.
She looked up at him; his eyes were glassy and red-rimmed with exhaustion caused by more than just rigorous travel.
Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) Page 11
