Cara blamed herself but blamed the Huntress more. All she had wanted was to stop the deaths, and now her captain had joined the list of her sins. She missed the feel of his lips on hers, the scent of him on her cloak. Desperate, she took his hand and pressed his palm to her cheek, needing to feel his touch one more time.
He’d been a fixed point around which Cara had revolved from the moment she’d met him in the dungeons below. She traced the faint scar on Khoury’s temple, the first one she’d noticed. The coolness of his skin sent a pang of finality through her.
“Mason, damn you,” she whispered. “I told you we’d miss you.” Sorrow pricked her eyelids but no tears came. “Who’s going to pull us out of the river now?”
She grappled with her new reality. She had two memories of everything and each thump of her heart jarred her frail body. She shivered in every fiber.
Then a calm strength flowed through her. The part of her that knew death was part of life stepped up. “First things first,” she whispered.
She placed her hand over the rune on the captain’s chest. Then, she gripped his left hand in hers, feeling the small scratch she’d left on his palm last night. It pained her to note there was no mirroring wound on her own hand. Her vow was just another thing that had been lost.
She kissed their clasped hands, the scent of smoke and dust and iron branding itself on her soul, and she laid her head on the blue and silver tabard. “And if the battle is lost, I will sing you home with honor.”
She took a breath, but her throat was too thick for singing. The more she tried, the closer the tears threatened, and she would not spoil the dirge with weeping. She swore she would fulfill that promise, but not there in the tower.
Behind her, soldiers entered the room. “Archer, the dragon left.”
She recognized the voice as Violet’s.
“One moment it was breathing fire, the next it flew away. Is the sorcerer dead?”
“Yes,” Archer said softly.
Awkward silence filled the space. Then Violet whispered with disbelief, “Is that the Captain?”
“Khoury has fallen.” Archer’s voice was tight with grief.
Silence followed. “He was a good commander. We’re building pyres for the dead. I’ll have some men come get him.”
They want to burn him? Indignation flared. Her fingers pressed into the rings of his chainmail.
But Archer spoke before she could lash them with her thoughts. “No.” His voice broke, escaping control. “He belongs with the Clan. I will take him there for his final rest.”
She heard boots leave the room but was too numb to move.
Bradan’s strong hands lifted her to her feet. “Come downstairs. Archer will bring Khoury.” She leaned into the shaman’s solid chest. “And what do we call you now?”
She glanced back at Archer as he bent down to put Khoury’s body over his shoulder. “We have many names and none. Call us what you will.”
ARCHER FOUND BRADAN at the window above the smoky bailey. “We set Khoury up in that room off the hall.” Archer’s heart was already heavy so he avoided looking down. They’d sustained significant losses and the pyres were stacked taller than his men. But after all he’d seen, Archer knew Khoury had been right—Sidonius needed to be stopped. He lingered next to the older man in silence, remembering a time before Connor’s death when they’d been close. Then he noticed the crystal wand in Bradan’s hands. As long as a dagger, the chieftain fingered its smooth sides.
“Is that it?” Archer asked.
Bradan lifted sad eyes to Archer and nodded. “I think so.”
“So you’ll fix them? Put them back the way they were?” Hope lightened his heart but only for a moment.
Bradan pressed his lips together. “I can’t.”
“With that scroll….”
Bradan stopped him. “It’s not that. This is who she was born to be.”
“But you can’t leave them like this,” Archer had no idea how the women would live, stuck inside the same body like that.
“The spirits have decided. She must return to the life that was stolen.”
Archer rubbed his eyes with hands that smelled of rosemary and myrrh. It felt as though he’d lost all of them at once. Not just Khoury, but Cara and Falin, too.
The woman they’d found in the tower was disturbingly familiar and yet strange. Her blonde and white-streaked mane was odd enough, but one eye was green and the other icy blue. It was eerie how those mismatched eyes never seemed to meet his gaze even when they looked right at him. The woman had said little to him while they washed Khoury’s body, preparing it with herbs and oils. She refused to let him remove the berry stains that adorned the captain’s hands, chest and brow. Khoury’s forearm was painted with the same thorns that adorned Falin’s bracer. And it was Falin’s low voice that sang a haunting dirge for the captain in the language she’d used to save Archer from the Thorns. And when she’d finished her song, she sat staring at Khoury’s face with eyes so bereft of hope, that for once, Archer hadn’t known what to say.
“I hear you found his storehouse,” Bradan said, interrupting Archer’s thoughts.
“Yes. I’m not sure what to do with it though.”
“Destroy it,” Bradan said, his words hard as flint.
“What?”
“It’s what Khoury died for, isn’t it? Keeping the power contained.” Bradan looked out over the bailey. He slowly raised the crystal to dangle over the emptiness. Then he whispered a prayer for forgiveness and let it go. The orange wand tumbled, shattering on the rocks below.
Archer knew he’d never get any of them back now. An unexpected wave of sadness choked him. The sorrow of all his losses, past and present, welled up in the hollow left by Khoury’s death. Tears flowed, tears he had contained in front of the men. But Bradan was family. Bradan put heavy arms around Archer. The chieftain had always been there for him: The night his mother died, and then Maclan, and even Tarhill. The old shaman had always cared for him.
“It’s my fault,” Archer whispered, feeling like the boy who’d caused a scene at Maclan’s funeral.
“No, it’s not.”
“Just like Maclan and Connor.” Ghosts of his dead past clung to Archer’s mind. “Tarhill said—”
“Your father may have blamed you but that doesn’t make it your fault. He was a hard man, Reid. And when life isn’t kind to men like that, they grow bitter.”
“Connor followed me to his death.”
Bradan pushed Archer away, forcing him to look at the older man. “No. You followed him to the death he wanted since Maclan’s accident.”
Archer squeezed his eyes tight, remembering how broken Connor had been after Mac died. Archer had been small consolation to either of them, Connor or his father.
“I know of your father’s curse,” Bradan said.
“What?” Archer stepped back, shame driving him away from the shaman.
“Do you think I wouldn’t wonder why you broke my daughter’s heart? The ancestors know all men’s secrets.”
Archer turned away, feeling guilty. “But he was right, Bradan. A silver tongue and sharp eye is worth very little when leading men. I’m not good enough for her.”
Bradan chuckled. “You have yet to actually lead anyone, Reid. You tend to follow.”
Archer retreated into sullen silence.
“Would it surprise you to know that my great-grandfather was a bard?”
Archer’s eyes widened.
“The best damn chieftain the Clan ever had,” Bradan continued. “Your father was wrong. A sword doesn’t make you a leader, and neither does blood. You need a kind heart and a strong will. I will tell you one thing. I never had a son, Reid. But if I did, I’d want him to be just like you.”
SHE FLOATED IN and out of dreamless sleep, unwilling to move, not wanting to breathe. Every time she woke, it was as if none of it had happened. Then she’d remember.
She’d helped Archer with Khoury, washing his body, anointing him
with oils and herbs and love. They’d dressed him in clean clothes and his armor and laid his weapons with him. Falin sang the Prayer for Homecoming, the song Sisters used to guide the dead to the Mothers. But none of it soothed her sorrow. Every time she’d touched the unnatural empty shell, her heart shriveled further. The haunting lyrics rolled around her head, giving more strength to the sorrow than to her.
She pulled the blankets over her, not wanting to think about the things Sidonius had said.
Get up! yelled a voice in her head, jolting her to sitting. Sudden dizziness darkened the edges of her vision. She lay back down and petulantly pulled the blanket back up.
This isn’t helping, rabbit, it prodded. But she didn’t want to talk to anyone, least of all Falin.
Go away, she thought as sternly as she could.
You know I can’t. And I can’t just sit here while you mope. Now get up.
No.
Yes!
Anger suffused her with restless energy and with it came an itchy sensation. Unable to sit still a moment longer, she stood and left the room, roaming her one-time home wrapped in the blanket. The stench of burning flesh still pervaded the Keep. She passed silently through the great hall that was filled with men sleeping scattered on the floor. Stopping to lean against a pillar, she thought back to how many times she’d seen men here. At least, these would go home.
It seemed like another life.
It was another life, the Huntress in her head reminded her.
She sighed wearily. How would she live with two voices in her head all the time? It was just another type of prison.
She felt no argument from her other half.
She crossed through the hall on silent feet, not knowing where she was heading but needing something, something to fill the hole in her heart. She padded out into the bailey. The bodies that had escaped the dragon flames had been stacked on funeral pyres and lit. The flames danced high into the night sky. The company had lost more than half its men, adding faceless numbers to Cara’s grief. Death was the real enemy.
Death is neither enemy nor friend, her inner warrior chided. Actions give life value, not the length of it.
She snorted in defiance. On this point, they would always disagree.
But her rebellious fire was short-lived. The hopelessness of her years in the Keep hung around her heart like chains, casting a pall over her thoughts. So much lost, so many things she wished had been different. They would never be free now. All she wanted was to go back to her cot and try to forget.
But we are alive. Falin’s soft voice beat back the dust and the weariness. And life is hope.
Hope for what? Cara thought, unable to see past the black walls, unable to think about anything but the dust in the room where Khoury died.
We can choose, Sister. We can choose to turn our backs and hide, or follow where this leads. And I, for one, refuse to hide.
Sister. The word carried with it a warm strength that pushed back the fear. Cara remembered the Huntress waking her for the watch, defending her on the hillside, chastising her in the stable. She could lean on her Sister.
Agreed, she thought to herself. No hiding.
The voices went quiet as her path turned toward the open gate. She passed beyond the looming doors out onto the tundra that stretched away under the moonlight. The breeze pushed at her playfully as if recognizing her. Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to it. She’d felt no power since the ritual and wasn’t sure if it had disappeared along with everything else, but she reached for the connection she’d felt while locked in the Keep anyway.
Inside her heart, she could sense that the Huntress longed for something, too. The part that had been Cara couldn’t tell exactly what Falin yearned for, but it was a deep ache that resonated with her own. And in those heartbeats, when their sorrow was the same and longing united their spirits, they felt something stir.
Her legs tingled as she felt her energy connect to the earth. The feet of the ageless mountains stretched down underneath the tundra, their spirit extending into the earth, drawing strength from below. But this energy wasn’t for them.
Other ancient energies hummed around them, but they were alien, arising from the Keep’s wall. Those stones had been brought from far away. Again, this was something they couldn’t use.
She sought in her mind for Foresthaven and the pines of Bear Clan. Echoes of the gentler spirits of animals and plants bloomed in her inner eye though only faintly, like a shadow cast by moonlight. These were her power. Familiar things. Warm things.
Before any thought could sap her hope, she allowed the yearning and sorrow and loss of her two selves to merge and sent that out as a call over the tundra.
Please come.
She stood there until she shivered with cold. What she was hoping for she couldn’t say.
Finally, the woman walked back into the Keep. They would wait and see what came of it. How long they could stand to wait in this place, they didn’t know. Even those who had been her friends were torture to be around.
When Bradan looks at us who does he see? Who does Archer see?
Certainly anyone who had known Falin would think she was acting oddly, no armor, no sword. Could Falin accept being treated as Cara, or could Cara endure the expectations of being Falin?
And who would Khoury have seen?
The question popped into her mind before she could stop it. A startling pang of jealousy stabbed through her as she wondered which woman Khoury had loved best.
She shook her head, chiding herself for even entertaining such a thought. Cara remembered images of Falin’s black eye, the captain’s sharp words, and even memories from Falin herself of him telling her she wasn’t needed. Of course he loved Cara.
But inside her heart there was a thorny wall where the strongest part of her kept secrets. The captain’s angular face by firelight, the boyish glee in his stormy eyes when telling tales of battle, the feel of his lips on hers—these treasures Falin buried behind the thorns, too deep for Cara to find.
Their feet took them back into the great hall. Most of the men on the floor were asleep though some stood watch. She passed through silently and out another door, down the hall to a room where the hearth glowed but faintly. On a low makeshift bier lay Khoury. Archer planned to take the body away to the Bear Clan for a proper burial.
Proper burial, Falin scoffed in her mind. What difference, fire or earth. Either way, he’s gone. Aching loneliness gathered inside her.
She knelt down by the body. A gossamer thread of connection to nature remained, and on it she felt the energy of a home far away. Drawing upon that connection, she closed her eyes and laid her hands once again on his chest. Before the voice in her head could criticize, she sought the healing she had given Archer in the days before. But the kind presence was silent.
He’s gone. We need to accept that.
Cara couldn’t fight the voice of reason. Whether her energy was too depleted or whether she had lost that skill was impossible to know, but in either case she still felt nothing. Her hands remained cold.
Tired and discouraged, sleep drew her down into its quicksand embrace, a heavy inexorable descent. She laid her head down on Khoury’s broad chest.
…And dreamed she walked through her forest. She felt someone beside her, but when she turned her head she was alone. Nevertheless, the feeling of being shadowed stayed with her as she moved through the brush beneath the unearthly leafy canopy. She came to a stream where a man stood on the far bank. She recognized those cobalt eyes and hailed him, but he wandered off like a lost child.
She splashed through the stream and charged through the trees after him. At every glimpse of silver armor, she called out. Each time she closed in, he faded like a ghost. Finally she collapsed with tears of frustration.
A light drew near, catching her eye. Without a sound, a woman approached wearing shining armor of white metal unlike any she’d seen before. The woman’s curly pale hair was unbound and a sword hung at her waist in a
scabbard that looked wrapped with vines. She’d seen this woman before. But where?
“You’ve returned.” Relief warmed the spirit’s voice. “Now all will be well.”
The woman who was Cara and Falin stared at the spirit in disbelief. “What do you mean?” she sniffled.
The spirit noted her tears with surprise. “My child, why are you weeping? Your power is restored. Your path awaits.”
The woman snorted with derision. “I have no power,” she said. “And there is no path.”
The spirit frowned. “Don’t you know who you are?”
The woman stood and wiped her face with her hated unmarked hands. “I am a snowflake, nothing more.”
For some reason this angered the spirit. “You are mistaken. Your mother gave you a name and a destiny. You are Raenna Alythenine Merrick. And you are my granddaughter.”
Raenna Alythenine Merrick?
She’d never heard a name that long before and the thought that she had a mother other than Sorchia sparked her anger.
“I’m just a foundling,” she snapped. “And this is a dream.”
The spirit softened and moved closer to touch her cheek. She felt a chill breeze on her face. “This is no dream. I’ve come because you must reclaim your destiny.”
“I have no wish for your destinies,” she muttered, pulling away.
The spirit leaned closer, her radiance almost unbearably bright. “If you do one thing for me…I will grant you a miracle.”
The air crackled with a strange potency, and her heart shuddered to a stop. “A miracle?”
“Your captain,” the spirit said. “He fell in battle, did he not?”
The woman nodded, afraid to breathe lest she disturb the unreasoning hope that flared to life.
“I know well the weight of such a sorrow,” the spirit said. “For all that was lost or gone astray, for all that you’ve suffered, I can give you one gift, daughter of my daughter. But only one. Choose well what you ask for.”
“Khoury will live?” She barely dared to name it but if the spirit had the power to help her….
Quest of the Dreamwalker (The Corthan Legacy Book 1) Page 39
