Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  The thunder of its hooves beat in time with her heart.

  Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.

  But that wasn’t quite right either. The pounding wasn’t outside of her. It was her heart, she and the beast were one, and instead of colliding with her body, she absorbed it, the essence of its force burning through her until it lifted her off the ground and into the air. Light shot from her fingers, her toes, poured from her open mouth, her ears, her eyes, and then she fell backward, but instead of hitting the ground she shot forward into the waking world with a startled gasp.

  Sunlight streamed through the overhead windows and down upon her face, and for a moment the purity of that light was all she could see. She shook her throbbing head and blinked, her wide eyes straining to take in her surroundings.

  She was in some kind of healing room, that much was clear. The crude wooden walls held several shelves of alchemical ingredients, the likes of which she’d never seen. Strange eyes floated in jars of yellow liquid, another contained just a handful of dried red flowers so small she had to squint to see what they were. Another still held a series of tangled roots that hypnotically swayed as if pulled upon by some invisible tide within its jar. The opposite row of shelves was lined with books, so old and worn many of the bindings were exposed and she could barely make out the titles etched across the faded leather spines.

  Where was she and why was her head pounding as if there were a heart where he brain should have been?

  The last thing she remembered was running. Had she been running to meet the stag? No. That wasn’t right. Was it?

  She was just reaching up to touch her temple when a body shuffled beside her. From the corner of her vision she saw a pair of long legs stretch across the scuffed stone floor, two massive boots drew inward beneath those legs, planting firmly on the floor beneath the chair in which the body attached to them sat. Tentatively, she turned her head toward that body and found a pair of curious eyes staring back at her and it took everything she had not to gasp again.

  Brilliant blue and crisp as the sky on a clear winter’s day, those eyes were smiling, but the smile disappeared behind a loose lock of ebony hair that slipped from behind an ear and fell in across his face like a curtain.

  “You were dreaming.” The voice almost didn’t seem to belong to the young man sitting beside her. When he reached up to tuck his hair back, he looked no older than her and she didn’t believe it was him who had spoken until his full lips parted for him to speak again. “You’ve been dreaming for days. Bad dreams, it sounded like. Dark dreams, but I stayed with you. Watched over you and sometimes I held your hand so you wouldn’t be afraid.” He had the most soothing voice, laden with a thick eastern accent unlike any she’d ever heard before. It was calming, deep, and as she lowered her gaze over him, she thought that despite his youth, that voice suited the hulking mass of man sitting in the chair beside her bed.

  Lifting her face, she looked into his eyes again. He had an impish air about him that said he wasn’t quite a man, but also not a boy. A part of her wanted to go on staring into his eyes, but the reality of her situation set in and she withdrew her gaze to further study the room she was in, suddenly feeling terrified.

  She was in a bed, in a healing room, but why? Other than the obvious reasons, which at the moment included the tremble of nausea racking her entire body and the biggest headache she’d ever had in her entire life. She reached a tentative hand toward her forehead and quickly drew her fingers away as soon as they touched the source of her pain. A scaly scab throbbed and twitched just beneath her hairline, and the quick sweep of her fingers across it sent searing pain into her head.

  Her throat ached and burned, and the mere act of swallowing felt impossible. When she opened her mouth the three words she spoke felt like fire.

  “Where am I?”

  As if he could sense her pain, he gripped the handle of the porcelain pitcher on the table between them and poured water into a cup. He held it to her, and she eyed it suspiciously. Her unspoken distrust curled his lips; the left side of his face drew slightly higher than the right and increased the impishness of his features.

  “On my honor, it’s only water. You’ve been sleeping here for days. Had I wanted you dead I could have easily killed you when you were most vulnerable, couldn’t I?”

  Still hesitant, but desperate to quench her parched and painful throat, she reached slowly for the cup. Her fingers brushed across his before he let go and watched her lift it to her lips, and for a moment she felt the strangest pulse of recognition that passed as soon as she drew the cup away.

  At first she took several greedy swallows, but she started to cough and sputter, nearly choking and making her throat hurt far more than it had before she drank. She waited until the fit passed, then sipped slowly, allowing the soothing liquid to coat her burning throat.

  Finally lowering the cup into her lap, she held it there until the itching burn settled and she was able to repeat her question. “Where am I?”

  “The healing room,” he explained. A playful flash widened his eyes, but she didn’t acknowledge his attempt at humor.

  “I see that I’m in a healing room, but where is it located?”

  The bite of her voice did little to stifle the clever grin he wore, and even less to encourage a straight answer.

  “Beside the Temple of Llorveth.”

  Llorveth, Lord of the Wild Hunt. She’d been dreaming of Llorveth, hadn’t she? Of a great white stag running toward her, no, running into her until their souls collided and she and the stag were one. Shaking the image from her mind, her head thumped in protest against the movement and she gasped in pain. Drawing a steadying breath through her nose, she closed her eyes and tried to wish the pain away.

  “And where is this Temple of Llorveth?”

  “Behind the great hall where the council sits and conducts incredibly important business, of course.”

  He thought he was being terribly clever, but between the confusion and the pain, her tolerance for clever reached its breaking point. “What hall, what council?” Shouting did even less for her throbbing skull and raw throat, and when she opened her eyes again the smile faded from his lips.

  “Wow. Rhiorna said you were some kind of princess, but I didn’t believe her. I mean, you don’t really look like a princess, but I guess that flare of temper just proves how wrong I was.” A smug smirk twitched at the edges of his mouth, bringing back a grin wide enough to deepen a dimple beneath the scruff on his unshaven cheek. “You’re in Drekne, your highness.”

  “Drekne.” That word rolled over her tongue and through her mind. Closing her eyes, she saw the map on the schoolroom wall from which Master Davan taught geography when she was very small. He used to make her name all the provinces in her father’s kingdom at least once per day, and with her eyes closed she could see them all falling into place on the map in her mind. “Drekne,” she said again, the visual finally sinking in as flashes of panic rippled through her.

  “Do you know where that is?”

  A meager nod tilted her head forward, but she avoided his eyes when she said, “It’s in the Edgelands.”

  “The Edgelands.” He said those words as if they were doomed, his large hands lifting off his lap and fingers wiggling as he widened his eyes dramatically and moaned like a ghoul. “You know we’re going to eat you now that you’re awake, right? That’s what we do here. Lure tasty humans into our woods and then hunt them down and eat them.” Lorelei gulped, exactly the response he’d been hoping for judging from the thick chuckle that followed. “Nah, we’re not really gonna eat you… well, maybe. Who knows what the council is planning.”

  Tilting her head to study him, she’d never seen one of the U’lfer up close, at least not that she knew of. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d been expecting, but apart from the patchy stubble on his cheeks and chin, the young man in front of her looked remarkably human, and for a fleeting moment she wondered how many U’lfer she had seen up close
and never even known.

  “You don’t really eat people,” she said tentatively, retracing through memories of all the stories Pahjah told her growing up. Men who could shift into beasts and hunt beneath the moons like wild animals. She shuddered.

  “Only when there’s nothing else to eat.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  That playful grin flashed at the corner of his mouth again. “Maybe.”

  She had a feeling he was, but as she battled through everything she’d ever learned about the U’lfer with the comedic young man sitting in front of her, she couldn’t be sure. Clearing her raw throat, she took another sip of her water and tried to avoid direct eye contact with her host.

  “Why am I here? I mean, how did I get here?”

  “Don’t you remember?” he asked.

  Closing her eyes, a flash of memory stabbed painfully through her and she saw herself running, could hear the barking hounds chasing after her, the distant blast of a horn rivaling the bay of wolves, but as soon as she opened them again the images were gone again, along with any explanation that might make sense of those memories.

  “No.”

  “I carried you.” He was grinning once more when she lifted her gaze to meet with his. A playful shimmer lingered in his eyes when he said, “About five miles, I carried you. All the way from the eastern fields to Drekne. I should probably be the one on that healer’s table. Nearly threw my back out,” leaning back he winked and finished with, “but I’d do it again.”

  “You carried me?”

  “I did.”

  “But why?”

  “I would have made you walk, but you were kind of unconscious,” he shrugged.

  Unconscious… Yes, she had been, hadn’t she? She’d fallen and hit her head, but what had she been running from in the first place. Why were the dogs chasing her? Everything in her mind was so foggy, she could barely remember her own name, much less what she was doing so far away from home.

  “You don’t remember anything?”

  “There were dogs,” she murmured, tidbits of flashing memory coursing through her aching head every time she blinked. “They were chasing me…”

  “Yes, there were.”

  “I don’t remember why…”

  “Do you know who you are?”

  She was Lorelei, firstborn of King Aelfric and Queen Ygritte, a princess of Leithe and she’d been betrothed to a prince from a place across the sea.

  Trystay…

  For a fleeting moment she could almost hear his voice, see his pacing shadow in the tent as he plotted her murder, some intricate plan he’d lay at rebel feet in order to more firmly establish Hofft’s military forces in Leithe before overthrowing her father and taking over the province.

  Lorelei winced, her mouth tightening as she turned her head toward the corner of the room and stared.

  “Of course I know who I am,” she said stiffly. “The important question here is who are you?”

  “He’s an idiot.”

  Snapping her attention toward the open doorway, a new voice which was no less deep than her conversational companion, but softer. The sudden movement sent searing pain through her head. It was impossible to tell how long the dark haired man with his arms crossed had been standing there, but from his expression she judged he’d heard more than enough.

  Pushing off the frame of the door, his arms dropped to his sides and he sauntered into the room. He carried an air of importance, as if he commanded respect, and though he had the same eyes as the young man sitting in the chair beside her bed, brilliant blue and clear as the sky on a cold winter day, his were older, edged by soft lines that that seemed to suggest he carried the heavy burden of an entire world inside him.

  “Do you remember what mother used to say about eavesdropping, Vilnjar?”

  “Mother used to say a lot of things you’ve allowed yourself to forget since her death. Surely she would forgive me just this once.” His gaze barely faltered from her face when he spoke. “Rhiorna will want to know that our guest is finally awake. Go and find her.”

  “You go and find her,” the younger man’s defiance reminded Lorelei instantly of her little sister, and the homesickness began to sink in. “I’m not some dog you can bark the words fetch to, Viln.”

  Vilnjar hardened, his ancient eyes narrowing into slits of hard crystal just moments before he turned his focus away from her. “You are already treading on very dangerous ground, Finn. I wouldn’t push my luck if I were you.”

  “Well, you’re not me,” Finn pointed out as he rose from his seat and stretched the thick muscle of his back into an arch before straightening to his full height. “I happen to like pushing my luck.”

  He was monstrous, she thought, a giant of a man towering over the edge of her bed like some statue of an old god, and for a moment she felt a twinge of sadness at the prospect of his leaving her. Even though he was a stranger and he’d spent the last few minutes teasing circles around her, she felt almost safe with him, but this other man, Viln, she wasn’t so sure about. He was hard and serious, and heavy traces of an agenda furrowed his brow.

  “Go, Finn. I won’t tell you again.”

  “Fine, but I’m only going out of respect for Rhiorna, not because you told me to.” He started toward the door, reaching the opening in three long strides before stopping to toss a clever look over his shoulder at her. “Don’t worry, Princess, my brother is even less likely to eat you than I am. He’s practically an herbivore.” Smirking one last time in Viln’s direction, Finn disappeared through the door, leaving Lorelei uncomfortably alone with his brother.

  For a moment they were silent, Lorelei listening to the fading sound of Finn’s booted footsteps until they were little more than a distant shuffle upon the floors. Her heart seemed to slow inside her, the loudness of its beating no longer so noticeable. Retracting her gaze from the door, she avoided eye contact, even when he began to speak.

  “I’ve no doubt my brother kept you entertained.” Stalking two steps toward her bed, he crossed his arms again as if he didn’t know what else to do with them. “And regardless of what he might have told you, no one here is going to eat you.”

  So he had been eavesdropping on their conversation. She couldn’t tell if he was making an attempt at humor, or if he was just as uncomfortable with her as she felt with him. She’d never wondered before how a shape-shifter might feel in the company of a non-shifter. She never even imagined she would come face to face with one in her lifetime, which was quite sad considering there were just as many shape-shifters in their world as there were humans, elves and other races, but they kept their distance, and with good reason from what she’d always understood. Her father loathed the U’lfer and the Kivtaryn, and people treated them no better than animals, worse than they treated the elves, which was sometimes difficult to believe.

  “Well, that’s a relief.” She tried to soften him with a smile, but there was no sign of amusement in his face. “But if you’re not planning to eat me, what are you going to do with me?”

  “That’s not for me to decide.”

  “Am I… a prisoner?”

  His mouth tightened at the edges, as if he was clenching his teeth behind his lips, and then it relaxed. “I’m sorry, Lorelei, but that’s not for me to decide either.”

  “You know my name,” she remarked. “How is it that you all seem to know my name, and yet I know nothing of you? Your brother wouldn’t even tell me where I was until I screamed at him, and he never did tell me his name.”

  “I apologize for my brother. Finn thinks everything is a game.”

  “So his name is Finn then?”

  “Yes, and I am Vilnjar.”

  “And how do you know who I am? Did he put you up to this? Were you all part of his plan? Tell me what I’m doing here! My father will never stand for this. When he finds out…” The rising panic made her heart flutter inside her chest, and she lifted a hand as she gasped in surprise, but gasping only seemed to make it flut
ter again, as if shocks of lightning pulsed through her veins.

  “Easy.” Vilnjar walked quickly toward the edge of her bed and gently gripped her shoulders. “Easy.” All the hard seriousness in his eyes softened, even the press of his fingers into her arms was gentle as he gave her a bit of a shake. “We aren’t part of any plots or plans. In fact, by all rights you shouldn’t even be here. We don’t trouble ourselves with the affairs of your people, and it’s been more than fifteen years since we’ve had contact with the world outside our own forest.”

  “Then why am I here?” Her heart was still pounding inside her, so heavy, so labored it felt like it was going to explode.

  “I was hoping you would be able to tell me why you are here,” he confessed.

  “You are here, Lorelei, because Llorveth has need of you. Your people need you, daughter of Rognar.”

  She’d been so caught up in the moment, in the tangled web of her own fear that for the second time since she’d opened her eyes someone else had sneaked into the room and caught her off guard. She hadn’t even heard the woman enter the room until she spoke. Vilnjar let go of her shoulders and stepped back, revealing a familiar face she could only place from her dreams.

  Framed by wild tangles of bright red hair, it was her, the woman from the market faire, but that had only been a dream, hadn’t it?

  “You are free to go, Vilnjar. Lorelei and I have much to discuss.”

  “The council grows impatient. They want answers, Rhiorna. What am I to tell them?”

  “Last I’d heard, the council was not even speaking to you, but if you chance to find yourself heard tell them I will address the village this evening.”

  He hesitated, as if there was so much more he wanted to say, but one look from the woman was enough to force concession. “As you wish,” he bowed his head and left the room, pausing for a moment in the opening to look back at Lorelei.

  Over his shoulder she saw a large, looming shadow on the wall across from her room, and then he reached out to guide that shadow away with him. Finn. She watched his shadow disappear, her stare lingering on the open door for several minutes after they had gone. She was afraid to make eye contact with the woman from her dreams, but even more than that, she was terrified of what she had to say.