Paranormally Yours: A Boxed Set

by Alisha Basso

  They gathered around her and the big gray, looking…well, they looked like kids on Christmas morning who’d just discovered under the tree the very thing they’d dreamed of.

  They stared at her, goggle eyed, until it became ridiculous. Their joy was contagious, but caution was Lauren’s nature. Their reaction to the flowers had been electric. She kept one hand on Pindar’s side to steady herself as she faced them.

  “Yes?”

  Then they all started talking at once. Pindar’s footsteps…the flowers…the land awakening…the prophecy…

  Above them, the air grew dense. It pressed behind Lauren’s eyes like a sinus headache. The density took shape then brightened, and High Crone Sebira gradually touched down, her tunic and long wispy hair blown flowing about her.

  The others quieted and looked from Lauren to the crone.

  “The prophecy is fulfilled, my lady,” Sebira said. “By your arrival. This we knew. The land recognizes her own and is refreshed. Our Lady is grateful.” She bowed.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “The land recognizes her own,” Sebira repeated, as if that explained.

  “You mean him?” She patted Pindar’s rump, and he snorted, sounding as disbelieving as she felt. She looked at Vraz. “So, you needed a horse, not me?”

  Before he could answer, Sebira spoke again. “The land needs her horses. The horses need you. You must make haste.” She directed this last to Leinos.

  “We go to Lerom, to the queen,” he said.

  Sebira squinted and her brow puckered, then she all but dismissed the Supreme Guardian of Cirq by flicking her gaze back to Lauren. “The horses are dying, my lady. As surely as is their land and their people. They have been separated too long. All is in your hands.”

  “No pressure,” Lauren quipped, feeling anything but amused. The eagerness she’d felt tightened into full-blown urgency. Horses dying? This, she had to stop.

  “You’re not making this up just to get me to help, are you?”

  Sebira’s knee-length hair billowed around her shoulders like angel’s wings. “How dare you,” she hissed.

  Lauren hurtled backward into the stall as if she’d run headlong into an electric fence, and landed on her rear beneath Pindar’s head, unable to breathe, a wave a nausea leaving her reeling.

  Vraz started forward then stopped.

  “By the goddess,” Leinos said, and also took a step then halted.

  Lauren sucked in air. Pindar’s ears lay flat against his head, his lip curled into a snarl, he held one back leg up with ominous intention, and his tail swishing angrily from side to side.

  The others stood, unsure of what to do, but sure getting past the horse to reach Lauren wasn’t an option. She almost laughed. Almost. Instead, she patted Pindar’s leg, and he relaxed, lowering his head to snuffle her ear. She pulled herself up and Leinos reached for her but stayed clear of the powerful animal’s back end.

  “Forgive me, Horsecaller,” Sebira said, also coming to her side. “A regrettable loss of control. It will not happen again.”

  Lauren leaned away from the crone, still feeling woozy, unsure whom to trust. Clearly, from the appalled expression on everyone’s faces, Sebira’s outburst was unusual. The high crone had powers and was revered, but not infallible. Also clear was the level of emotion surrounding the horses and the fate of Cirq, which was understandable. But to succeed, Lauren would need a cool head.

  “Can you tell me exactly what you mean when you say the horses are dying?” An absurd question, maybe, but nothing was what it seemed in this place. “Have you seen dead horses?”

  For an instant, the crone looked like she might fling another thunderbolt, but Lauren didn’t duck, even though every molecule of her being—still vibrating from the first shock—screamed for just that. Instead, she eased away from Leinos and stood on her own. Sebira ran long fingers over the top of her head, settling her thin silver hair, or soothing herself, Lauren wasn’t sure which.

  “I have seen…” The crone’s gaze wandered into the middle distance.

  Ah, Lauren thought, the old gal wasn’t used to explaining herself. She decided to help her along. “You’ve been to the Bitter Reaches and seen the dead bodies of horses.”

  The crone’s head snapped around. “No,” she answered quickly, then looked surprised. “Not precisely.”

  Lauren tried not to roll her eyes. Vraz’s head swiveled so he could gaze into the middle distance just as Sebira had. But he was trying to hide a smile. She resisted the urge to look where they had because she knew perfectly well there were no answers in thin air.

  “Then what, precisely?”

  “I saw them in a vision.”

  If Lauren hadn’t had the vivid dream, she might have scoffed. It didn’t matter, really. Even if there were only a chance that the horses were sickening as the people had, she would do everything in her power to help.

  “All righty then.” She turned to Leinos. “Which way is Lerom?”

  “South.”

  “And the Bitter Reaches?”

  “North,” he answered.

  She crossed her arms and took a moment to look at each of them.

  “Then, shouldn’t we be going north?”

  ~~~

  They moved out quickly. Sebira left the way she’d come, and Lauren figured that if the woman could beam herself to and fro at will, then maybe her visions could be trusted. Her party wasn’t traveling north or south at the moment, but more-or-less east, using the only path down the mountainside. Weak sunshine and a light breeze greeted them as soon as they reached the tree line and the going was much more pleasant than the day before. Even though cold still bit her cheeks and numbed her feet.

  Occasionally, she glanced behind to see if she could catch sight of tiny white flowers magically popping up from of Pindar’s hoof prints, but she never did. She still didn’t know what it meant, but the others plainly believed it demonstrated the connection between land and horse, but she didn’t assume it meant that she was, indeed, the prophesied Horsecaller.

  She turned her attention forward, to finding those pesky horses. To “calling” them. She expected there was a difference. That if she found them didn’t mean she had called them. There was deeper meaning there she didn’t grasp. And that worried her. Because she couldn’t beam herself to and fro at will; she didn’t have magical powers. She wasn’t the prophesied Horsecaller, no matter what they believed.

  Artepa had said they would reach Steepside at the middle of the day, and there they would leave Malek with relatives. The boy walked beside Pindar whenever the path allowed. At a particularly sheer and rocky passage, she had suggested he hold on to her stirrup to keep from slipping, and now he continued to hang on regardless of the footing. Sweet.

  The trail switched back down the mountain, and every now and then provided a tantalizing glimpse of a distant plain, but most of the time the view was blocked by craggy, white peaks covered in dense brush and weathered evergreens. All of it old and dry. The only place she’d seen any sign of life had been at the Ravery, where the magnificent trees had been covered with fragile green buds.

  Long after her stomach said it was lunchtime, Pindar stopped. She had nearly toppled off. The smell of smoke reached her, making her stomach growl. Where there was smoke, there was fire, and where there was fire, there was food. Pindar’s nostrils flared and ears pricked. He made a half-whinny, half-grunt deep in his throat, then tossed his head. Whatever scent he caught, he didn’t like.

  The air carried something else to their nostrils.

  Leinos knew what it was. Foreboding slid into his empty belly. He stretched his senses outward, stealing his way through the sparse trees to the village.

  Death.

  The immediate danger, gone. Everything, gone. Artepa and Pheeso, who had been bringing up the rear, came alongside him. Without looking, he knew Malek stayed at the Horsecaller’s side. The sage had his own way of traveling and did not walk with them. But he was never far awa
y.

  “Steepside?” Artepa whispered, and the note of despair in her voice echoed what he feared.

  Vraz came toward them from the direction of the village. When his eyes met Leinos’s, he confirmed what the Supreme Guardian already knew.

  Vraz glanced at the Horsecaller before speaking. “It would be best to go around.”

  “No,” Leinos said.

  He began to run. The closer he came to the village, the thicker the smoke, and the smell…he knew it too well. Smoldering corpses. As he broke into the clearing that marked the outer fringe of the once quaint, lake-hugging hamlet, he took in what was left. Nothing but the charred foundations of small homes and workshops, and at the far end of what had been the main street, the pile of smoking bodies.

  Vraz caught up. “I bade the others remain. One woman was hunting in the forest when it started and returned in time to see the attack. She wisely stayed hidden. After they were gone, she worked all night to drag the bodies into a pile. Her parents—”

  Leinos brought his hand up sharply to silence the sage. Impotent fury surged through his entire body as fiercely as the fire that had ripped through the ancient village. He needed to hit something, or someone, but not Vraz.

  “Yekerk?” He could smell them still, their foul stench lingered along with the smoke.

  Vraz nodded. None of their enemies had penetrated this far inside their borders since the war. Whoever sent the wicked flying creatures had no doubt also sent the ones that attacked them at the Ravery.

  The Ravery was near the river that divided Cirq from her nearest neighbor. Derr’s queen was an ally, but she had been overthrown by lords united with King Rast of Tinnis, and no one knew where she was or if she lived. Derr, though not deteriorating in the same way as Cirq, had known nothing but civil war ever since the revolt. They were too busy with their own problems to have sent the yekerk.

  That meant they had to come from Tinnis, but this was far beyond their normal range.

  “Why now?” Leinos asked, not expecting an answer. If they had only been faster, they might have prevented this. This complete destruction. There was nothing here to take, no reason to attack except to terrorize. If they had their horses—

  “I have convened the sage council in Elaz,” Vraz said. “I must leave to join them. One of our own may be behind these attacks. He may also be aware the Ravery opened, and even that someone has come through.”

  “A sage?” Leinos’s mind raced with the implications. Long ago, Cirq had welcomed the sages and given them safe haven when they were driven out of the other nations. Same with the crones. They were allies, not adversaries. If a sage were in league with their enemies—

  “The Horsecaller is in danger,” Vraz said. “You must protect her above all else.”

  At the sound of movement behind them, they turned. Lauren and the others emerged from the trees. The look on her face spoke of the horror she saw. The boy sat behind her, and she helped him down before dismounting, never taking her eyes from the remains of Steepside and its people.

  She wrinkled her nose, then turned to him, eyes glittering with unshed tears.

  “Are those—?” She coughed to clear her throat. “What happened here?”

  Leinos moved to block her view. He knew nothing of her world but suspected this was not something she was used to. No one could be used to it. “A yekerk attack,” he said softly.

  Her face lost all color, her lower lip trembled, and she crumpled in on herself. He grasped her upper arms so she wouldn’t fall. Closing her eyes, she gulped several breaths in an obvious attempt to will herself under control.

  He added a small amount of his own power to shore her up, but she needed to do this on her own. Slowly, her color returned. She squared her shoulders and met his gaze. The compassion remained but had been joined by grim determination. Good. She would need this and more.

  A keening sound pierced the air. The lone survivor knelt near the blaze and wailed again, hands raised in supplication, then slumped to the ground, her slight body wracked with sobs.

  “My God,” Lauren said, her voice strong again. “We have to help her.”

  Leinos signaled for Artepa and Pheeso to go. They and Malek went to the woman. Vraz said he would search the area for signs that might confirm the origin of the attack, but then he must be on his way.

  Leinos still held the Horsecaller’s arms. Even through the thick leather cloak, she felt bound to him, as if they had been connected long before Vraz and Sebira brought her through the Ravery. His bones recognized her as if her sinews twined with his. This was neither time nor place, but he couldn’t prevent the surge of exhilaration that thrummed through him. Every time he touched her. He tamped it down. Being near her would have to be enough.

  He must have allowed some of this to seep beyond his skin, for she squinted, bringing him into sharper focus, and tilted her head to one side regarding him for all the world like he was an unknown but unexceptional bug.

  Indeed.

  “Vraz told you to stay back and you did not,” he said more harshly than intended. No reason to release his anguish on her. “I want you to wait here.”

  Truly, the Supreme Guardian of Cirq did not outrank Horsecaller, but he hadn’t yet reconciled himself to this new order.

  “I couldn’t,” she said. Bending sideways, she peered around him. “And I won’t now.” She stepped out of his hold. “Does the Horsecaller take orders from sages and guardians?”

  He studied her for a long moment. It was a guileless question. She might be an unknown—he suspected as much to herself as to him—but she was far from unexceptional.

  This, and more.

  In answer, he moved to her side and they walked down Steepside’s rutted main road together, in silence.

  Artepa and Pheeso had the woman on her feet, steadying her between them, and she had her arms wrapped around Malek. As they drew closer, Leinos realized she was Malek’s older cousin, Armody.

  She turned. Her face was streaked with tears and soot, eyes red rimmed, swollen, and wild. She gripped Malek as if she swam with the dead like the rest of her village and the boy her only lifeline.

  At first, it appeared she did not recognize the Supreme Guardian. Her gaze swung blindly from him to the horse and back. Then, she released Malek and fell against Leinos, crying soundlessly into his chest.

  Lauren felt their agony as if it were her own. Leinos squeezed his eyes shut, and she couldn’t bare to look at him in this moment of extreme misery. He had been strong for her a few minutes ago. But these were his people, and hard as this was for her, she couldn’t imagine his heartache.

  She took Pindar a little ways off, toward the bank of the lake, where he drank. He had followed her toward the mound of burning bodies, but was jumpy from the roiling smoke and and stench.

  Death.

  She’d never seen so much of it.

  The big gray’s ears flicked back and forth and his nostrils flared. He drank for a moment, then jerked his head up and looked intently over the calm surface of the water, moisture dripping from his chin. She followed his gaze but couldn’t see anything on the far bank. He put his nose to the water again, and she rested her forehead against his strong shoulder, swallowing hard against fear, sobbing, nausea.

  She would stay strong. For herself, for Pindar, for the horses, for Cirq. Could she withstand what this place demanded? Her main concern had been keeping up physically. She’d thought her ability to analyze and quickly solve problems would help her navigate this new territory.

  How naïve.

  Artepa came over. “Are you well, my lady?”

  “Yes.” Lauren shrugged and turned. “No. Are you?”

  The older woman shook her head and studied the dirt around her feet, her straight white-blonde hair falling around her like a curtain. After a few moments, she lifted her gaze to Lauren’s. In the pale light reflecting off the glassy surface of the lake, her eyes were the color of newly baled hay.

  “We have fought ba
ttles,” she said. “People die. There has been a truce since we were young. But only because the sport had gone out of attacking us. We are too weak to bother with. King Rast of Tinnis has been waiting for us to simply die off.”

  The elder woman plainly needed to get this off her chest so Lauren just listened.

  “He doesn’t want the land, just to be rid of all potential threat to his power. We have never threatened him or anyone. Cirq always upheld the tenets of the balance of power until his great-grandfather tried to take the horses for himself. Then we defended ourselves. But this..” She cast her eyes around Steepside. “I do not know why they have attacked like this, now. This is senseless and barbaric.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. Leinos stroked the young woman’s hair and talked to her. The girl nodded.

  “He was born here,” Artepa said.

  “The Supreme Guardian?”

  “Yes. Was there when Armody was born. He was very close to her parents. Once, he was joined with Armody’s aunt.”

  “Joined, like married?”

  “If that is what you call it when two become one, share one fur, one roof.”

  “Yes, that’s what we call it.”

  Lauren watched Leinos comfort the young woman. She’d known the people of this village were his countrymen, but not his family. She’d considered herself a master of hiding her true feelings, but she was a rank amateur compared to him. He and his wife had probably known each other from childhood.

  “Was she—?” Lauren gestured helplessly at the ruin of the village, trying to imagine what it had been like before.

  “Oh, no. Not here. No. She died long ago.”

  “Does he have children?”

  “They did. A boy and a girl. Both died at the same time as their mother.” Artepa shook her head again. “All had the slumbering sickness. He tried to save them, but…” Her voice cracked. “Not even the Guardian of all…no one survives it.”

  At that, Lauren’s throat tightened painfully and the tears she’d been holding back escaped, stinging her cheeks.

  Chapter 12