“Condemned is more like it. Driven to the edge of extinction, which is something you and your people obviously can’t relate to because I saw more Alvarii just walking the streets of your little underground city than all the U’lfer in Breken and Drekne combined. How could that be what Heidr wanted for any of us? Are not all the children of his children precious to him?”
“The U’lfer and Alvarii are incomparable as a people. The U’lfer were nomads and wanderers, conquerors who once raged across this land like a plague of violence. The Alvarii are a peaceful race, or at least we were before we were collared and made into slaves. Humankind has never been an advocate of peace. Aelfric, as you put so plainly put it, is a tyrant. As you can see from our living arrangements,” he held his hands out to the illusory world surrounding them and let them think about that for a moment before continuing, “so was his father before him, but the fact that the most aggressive, warmongering U’lfer of them all was willing to lay down his life in order to ensure the safety and future of not only his wife and unborn child, but his entire race, impressed the All-Creator, and for the first time since he’d woven the fiery serpent that flows against the grains of time and set it spinning against this world, he had hope for creation.”
“How do you know this story?” She challenged him with the all brevity of a spoiled child. “If Rognar entered into a blood pact with the All-Creator, no one would have known because he died, and you said Rhiorna’s memories were shattered.”
Smiling wryly, the old elf lifted his elbows to the tabletop and clasped his hands together as if in prayer. “I am a seer, Lorelei, or rather I was. Alvariin shared many visions with me through the ages, before her voice grew quiet. Perhaps she simply showed me this so I might one day share the knowledge with you, or maybe there were other reasons for it. I choose to believe it was for this very moment in time I was given the privilege of that vision, so I might share with you the importance of your task, of your very existence.”
“How…” Shaking her head, Finn wished there was some way he could steady all the emotions she was feeling inside her, some comfort he could offer. She wanted to know how her own father could condemn her, could place so much on her shoulders before she was even born, but instead she asked, “How can one person be expected to make such a difference?”
“That, my dear, is for you to decide.”
No one spoke for a long time after he said those words. In fact, there was no sound in the garden at all, save for the twittering of birds nested in the branches of the trees towering around the estate. When Gwendoliir seemed certain she was not going to pursue the matter, he went on. “If you’ve no more questions, we should turn our attentions to the true reason for your coming, the reason Yovenna sent you to me. The guardian of Great Sorrow’s Peak and protector of the Horns of Llorveth. The drakoren.”
But such grand confessions weren’t so easily forgotten. Finn felt her confusion, and the tentacle-like spiraling of fear wrapping around every part of her and squeezing from within. She was just one girl, not even a woman yet, and she knew nothing of the world. How could she be expected by anyone, least of all the very gods who’d conjoined their efforts to populate the world, to save it before it could all collapse in upon itself? The gods were mighty, omnipotent, if the priests and prophets were to be believed, so why lay the burden upon the shoulders of one girl who knew absolutely nothing about the world?
The temperamental wolf beneath his skin stretched with aggravation and itched to lash out. He could almost feel the needling prickle of an uncontrolled transformation, the hairs at the back of his neck tingling as if someone stood behind him and blew warm breath against his skin.
His unspoken rage was electric, and everyone at the table could feel it rising. The old elf glared at Finn, a silent warning furrowing the carefully sculpted silver hairs of his brow dangerously over his tranquil eyes, and then he turned his gaze more favorably on Lorelei.
“I think I would know if there was… a piece of a god inside me.”
“Would you?” he tested her. “Surely you’ve heard the stories. Old tales of the All-Creator descending to live mortal lives so he might better understand his own design.”
“But those are just stories.”
“Are they? Is there not some thread of truth to every story? Where do stories begin, if not in moments of truth?”
“I can’t…” she protested. “I can’t be this… thing, or whatever. I can’t do this.”
“Lorelei, you must.”
“Why? Why must I? Because some god deemed it so? Have I no say?”
“Of course you have say, but to turn your back on your obligation…”
“Obligation? I never agreed to this.”
“Princess,” he started, leaning forward in his chair to reach for her.
“No, Finn, don’t. I never asked for this, and you expect me to just blindly do it because you told me there was some random piece of divinity inside me? To risk myself, my friends…”
“For the greater good, there can be no risk too severe.”
Brendolowyn cleared his throat, head lowered so the braids of his hair fell around his face like a shroud. “I know you don’t wish to hear it, my lady, but it’s true. Perhaps we did not ask to be a part of this, but we are.”
“How could I possibly ask anyone else to do this with me?” she retorted, drawing a grimace of appreciation from Gwendoliir, who maneuvered his wary gaze from the half-elven mage and focused on her once again. “Facing the Tid Ormen surely means going to my own end…”
“You don’t have to ask me to do anything, Princess,” Finn spoke up before the elf could say another word. “I am with you through the thick of this, start to finish, you and me.”
“Finn…”
“As am I, my lady,” Brendolowyn added, and though Finn’s natural inclination toward jealousy wasn’t entirely lost, for the moment he and the half-elven mage stared at one another with solidarity unlike any Finn ever felt before.
They were in this together, all three of them, and maybe he didn’t exactly care for the mage, but he had to respect a man willing to follow without question into dangers untold to the very end of the world and back.
“You are not alone, Lorelei,” Gwendoliir assured her. “It seems there is nothing strong enough to deter either of these warriors from your side.”
She looked between the two of them, her brilliant amber eyes gleaming with unshed tears. Overwhelmed by their level of commitment, her emotions were a hurricane inside her, an endless storm battling until the only thing left to feel was weary. She wanted to know more, hell, so did he, but she surprised him by stiffening against her own emotions, swallowing the lump of fear tightening in her throat and then clearing it to ask, “We came here to learn more about the guardian at Sorrow’s Peak. What do we face there?”
“Then you will do what must be done?”
“Do I have any other choice?”
“There is always a choice, Lorelei.”
“Sadly, it’s not always one we make for ourselves. Tell me about the drakoren.”
Hesitating for a moment as he gathered his thoughts, Gwendoliir nodded slowly and cleared his throat. After that, Finn tuned out again. It was dumb to let his mind wander, and he knew it, but he couldn’t focus anymore. He sat silent, brooding over the number of things he wasn’t meant to understand, the complicated threads of destiny. Boy, he thought, Vilnjar would have exploded during such a heated debate about the nature of destiny and personal choice, not to mention the role the gods played in the affairs of mortals.
The elf’s quick dismissal of his rising temper before had the effect he was aiming for: ignoring the beast made it feel small, and so he’d sat through the rest of the conversation silently brooding and doing everything in his power to tune out the prickling stabs of Lorelei’s never ending emotions.
Sad, he was no longer even hungry.
By the time Gwendoliir excused himself to attend to his never ending duties, Finn didn�
�t know what to think about anything. The seer granted them freedom to linger in the gardens and encouraged them to explore the city. They would be welcome wherever they went in Nua Duaan, which seemed a far cry from being told not to wander the night before. He still didn’t trust the Alvarii. He didn’t know what they’d been up to, but he was pretty sure they were definitely up to something.
Finn watched as Brendolowyn rose quickly and chased after the seer, calling out that he had a few questions of his own before catching up and following Gwendoliir through the gates of the garden and into the streets.
Left sitting alone with Lorelei at the table, those strange birds chirruping in the leaves dangling shade from a sun that couldn’t burn them, Finn found himself oddly speechless as he watched her push untouched food around her plate with a fork she’d barely used at all.
“You should eat something,” he insisted. “You hardly ever do, you know, and there’s no telling when we’ll get another feast like this, Princess.”
“Is that all you can think about?” she snapped, pushing the plate away before dropping both hands into her lap. “I’m hardly ever hungry anymore. My stomach is a tangled mess of knots and fears and so much…” Words failed her, those hands now clasped and wringing atop her thighs as she stared at the food in front of her. “I honestly don’t know how you can eat at all.”
“There’s very little that turns my stomach that sour,” he said, reaching across the table to grab one of those strange pastries he’d liked so much and then pushing it into his mouth to chew.
Annoyed, she pushed her chair away from the table and without another word stormed off toward the manor house, her boots clicking along the cobbled walkway leading into the back doors.
Finn held the pastry in his hand, suspended between his mouth and the table. The storm of her leaving brought the guilt on, and for a moment he thought he should just let her vent alone. He tried to convince himself she didn’t want him around, but he knew better. She may not say it, but he could feel it. She needed comfort, and it was his job to provide it—especially if he really wanted her to make him party to her future if he survived Great Sorrow’s Peak.
The breath that left him was defeat, hand dropping back to the table, the pastry rolling onto his plate as he pushed the chair away and rose to his full height. The servants in the garden seemed relieved he was leaving, and that made him want to stick around because he had a feeling he wouldn’t get another meal like that for a long time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The smooth leather of her boots made a surprising amount of noise as she hurried across the stone and marble floors, around the winding stairs in a quick jaunt that brought her swiftly to the third floor of the seer’s manor. Down the long hallway to the room where she’d spent the night tossing and turning, she burst through the door and closed it behind her. In the center of the room she stood catching her breath, which was suddenly short and raspy in her chest, her heart scaling such furious and unpredictable heights she felt light-headed and strange.
Surely, it was about to explode. Would such a thing even matter? Would it kill her? Was she even really alive?
She’d certainly thought so before learning her own father offered her up as a vessel—some earthly body to house the essence of a god. How could he? And just when she was starting to get used to the idea of a father who might have actually loved her if he lived? What kind of father was willing to sacrifice his own child that way?
Trembling hand rose to the amulet that hugged her throat. It suddenly felt too tight, as if it were choking the life out of her. Curling fingers around it, she wrenched in a quick movement, intent on tearing it free from her neck, but the hard bronze and moonstone only scraped through her fingers and the leather cord remained firmly where it was. She hissed frustration and pain, pulling her hand away and staring down at the broken skin beading bright red across her palm.
It pulsed with the fury of her heartbeat, stinging thumps beneath the flesh, which she lifted quickly to her lips to suckle. Her own blood was metallic and salty, the flicker of her tongue across the wound only barely alleviating the pain. Dropping her hand to her side again, she raked the fingers of her other hand through her hair, catching them in the loose tangle of a single braid twining along the crown of her head. She wrenched through it, once more inspiring an unnecessary amount of pain as she freed her hand and stared down at the gold and red strands wavering and fluttering in the hot exhale of her own frustrated breath.
Wiggling them free from her fingers and barely watching as they floated to the floor, she stalked toward the dressing table on the far side of the room, where she sat that morning carefully brushing out her hair and almost convincing herself life was normal again.
Before Finn came knocking at her door, she’d nearly believed she was sitting at her bedroom mirror at home. The illusion it provided was almost convincing enough for her to believe she need only glance into the glass to see her little sister hovering over her shoulder, wiggling fingers through the long, waving tangles of her golden tresses while waiting for her turn with the hairbrush. She could nearly see her sister’s mischievous grin, the shine in her grey eyes.
Her little sister.Her best friend. Gods, how she missed Mirien, how she worried for her. If Trystay went back to the castle, he would go after Mirien next. Of that she had no doubt. Would Pahjah protect her? Their mother? Neither woman lifted a finger to shield Lorelei from the inevitable, and she couldn’t imagine them doing it for Mirien either. Ygritte had reason to disconnect from both of her daughters. Lorelei reminded her of the love she lost. Mirien forced her to think about the life she didn’t want.
She needed to go back for her sister, get her out of there, but could she? The very thought of it made her feel like a fool. There was no telling what Lorelei herself was capable of, what twisted act the puppeteer god holding her strings might force her to perform. What if she hurt her sister? What if she brought nothing but death to everyone she cared about? Finn and Bren insisted they didn’t care, but Lorelei cared. She didn’t want anyone she loved getting caught in the crossfire of whatever it was she was meant to do, even if they were prepared to sacrifice their own lives for her.
No. It was better not to let anyone she cared about at all get anywhere near her, and for the briefest of moments she knew the best course of action would be to pack her things and slip out alone before someone noticed she was leaving.
She stared into her own eyes, her vision clearer than it had been in a very long time. The bursts of citrine against brilliant amber reminded her of fire, and though it should have been something she felt, its flame inside her was so small it left her feeling cold and empty and confused.
Her inner-fire was as false as the Alvarii sunlight streaming through the window, warming the air like the breath of a mid-summer afternoon wavering humidly through the trees. She could feel the heat of it, though it was untrue, and leaning toward it, away from the mirror, she crossed her hands through the brilliant, golden-white stream of it pouring through the glass. Dust motes stirred with the movement of her hand, twirling and dancing like tiny specks of light across her throbbing, blood-smeared palm. It was unbelievably bright, that light, convincing her, just as Bren promised, she wasn’t underground at all, but basking in the true light of Heidr’s all-seeing eye.
She felt like that underground city. A right farce of a savior, if ever there was one. Everything about her was false, including the strange elements from which her soul was crafted. Just a vessel, she felt empty inside, yet so full to bursting with things she couldn’t name or grasp or even begin to try and explain.
Curling and uncurling her fingers, she ignored the stinging cut across her palm and let the particles dancing through the light touch her. Odd, how quickly it struck her as she watched them pirouette and dance. Touched by that light, awareness burned through her the way the light of a torch eats away the darkness.
All along she’d been sending prayers to the wrong deity, seeking guidance f
rom Llorveth and sometimes Madra. In the temple in Drekne, she’d tried to feel the god’s presence, attempted to call for guidance while she sat in Llorveth’s temple in Dunvarak beside her brother, but she’d felt nothing. No connection, no understanding and certainly no direction. Logren said the god would speak to her when the time was right, but what if Llorveth never spoke to her? What if the god she should have been seeking guidance from was the grandfather of the world, the creator of all things himself?
“Heidr,” she muttered, a whisper between her lips so soft she scarcely heard it spoken, “please. Help me.”
And as if in answer a sharp rap sounded at the door, quick knuckles thumping tentatively across the wood and making her jump back in dismay. She hadn’t expected an answer so soon…
She hadn’t locked the door behind her, and before she even had a chance to call out for whoever it was to go away, the handle jiggled and the portal swung forward into the room. Conflicted relief flooded her senses, comfort warming through her when she saw him standing in the frame, broad shoulders stiff, head held high as if he were bursting through to her rescue. Maybe he was. She didn’t know anymore.
“I meant what I said down there.” He held up one of the napkins, bulging with food he’d taken from the table, and when she looked up at his face she couldn’t deny how much lighter she felt just to see him grinning in that way she’d grown so fond of since she’d met him. “You really should eat something.”
She feigned exasperation, throwing up her hands and taking a step toward him. “Honestly, Finn. How can you eat?”
“Easy,” he shrugged, shuffling further into the room and turning back just long enough to close the door behind him. “I lift the food to my lips and…” Another shrug, his analogy self-explanatory and then he walked toward her with that napkin full of morsels from the table downstairs.
Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) Page 33
