Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  “Do you only worship Llorveth here?” She tried to break the unreal silence that lingered too comfortably between them, but the words felt hollow when she spoke them. “Not just you. Your people, I mean.”

  The altar to Llorveth in the Temple of the Thirteen at home had been little more than a pair of bronzed antlers on display, so much smaller, so much less significant than the massive white marble statue looming before her. Pahjah told her once when she was very small that all other gods were made to appear less significant in Leithe, and the inferior non-humans were lucky the Temple of the Thirteen honored any gods other than Foreln and the Ladies at all. The Lord of the Wild Hunt, Llorveth was only honored twice per year in Leithe, during the spring fires when the farmers laid first seed into the ground and on Llorveth’s Day just before the hunt leading into the harvest season.

  The U’lfer revered the Lord of the Wild Hunt, placing him above all other gods because it was Llorveth who fathered them and gave them life. Each of the other races was the same, at least according to Master Davan, but she’d already learned a lesson in true historical accuracy once that day. Lorelei imagined there would be plenty of other lessons for her to learn, plenty of opportunities for the world she thought she’d known all her life to unravel in her lap.

  “We honor all the gods here,” he shrugged, “but the scrolls of Llorveth say he is our father, that he crafted our souls from the very essence of the Great Hunt itself, whatever that means. We don’t practice the Great Hunt anymore. No one has since before I was born.”

  “What is the Great Hunt?”

  Finn laughed, a gruff, almost scoffing sound as he drew his shoulders back and leaned into the bench behind them. “To be honest, all I know of it are stories. The council hasn’t permitted the ritual in almost two decades, and to prevent any of the young from attempting it in secret, all the tomes containing reference to it were burned, but my mother used to tell me stories about it when I was small. She said every spring they gathered all the pups on the verge of transformation in the clearing for the great fires. As the flames devoured the darkness, the uninitiated would meditate and commune with Llorveth under the power of the three moons. The elders chanted all through the night, willing his spirit to come forward at dawn to lead the next generation of wolves into the Wild Hunt. She said as the sun rose over the treetops the blood of a young, virgin doe was spilled upon the altar. The sound of her bleating would wake Llorveth, and he would appear at the edge of the clearing to taunt the wolves to chase him. Those who were ready to embrace the beast would follow, and those who weren’t would be returned to the village where they would have to wait until the following spring to see if they were ready to become one with the beast within.”

  Master Davan had never told her about that during their cultural studies lessons.

  “It sounds beautiful, almost primitive.”

  She realized after she said that word, primitive, how rude and narrow-minded she sounded, but Finn didn’t even seem to notice. He shrugged his shoulders again and glanced over at her as he spoke. “Who knows? Maybe it was primitive. I only know what my mother told me. They do everything so differently now, but it’s all my generation knows.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, for starters we aren’t allowed to celebrate coming of age anymore. Instead the elders shame you.” He clenched his fingers together in his lap, squeezing them so tight as he spoke she watched his knuckles whiten with tension. “When a young pup starts to show signs that he’s nearing his first transformation, the council isolates him from the rest of the village until his first becoming.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re fools, all of them so afraid of what we are… They want us all to fear what lives inside us, to pair the urge we feel to shift beneath the moons with the agonizing pain and terror of that first lonely transformation so we think twice about doing it, I guess.”

  “That’s awful!” She drew her hands up to rub along the cotton sleeves covering her chilled arms.

  Agonizing pain and terror… If what Rhiorna told her was true, was that what she had to look forward to?

  “It is awful,” he agreed, obvious tension and loathing in his voice. “The most natural thing in the world, and they take it away from us. Turn it into something shameful and terrifying so we think twice about indulging the monster within.”

  “But you…”

  When she closed her eyes, she could see the blurred image of the beast coming into focus in the dark above her, silver tendrils of moonlight playing upon his sleek, black fur. He was the single most terrifying, yet beautiful thing she’d ever seen and sitting next to him in human form made it hard for her to imagine that man was the same beast.

  “When you saved me from the dogs…”

  “My sister and I were out hunting, a luxury very few among us are allowed. I shouldn’t have been there at all, but Rue likes to bend the rules almost as much as I do, though she’ll never admit that if anyone asks. She thinks I should be ready, in case a day ever comes when I need to hunt to survive, and if what Rhiorna says is true, I suppose all her training will pay off when we’re exiled.”

  That sounded familiar, she thought, glancing over at him and trying to find some sign of the beast inside him. All her life she’d heard about the shifter races, but she’d never thought she’d actually see one, much less discover she was one of them herself. She still didn’t believe that, wasn’t even sure she ever would believe it. The odd thing was that Finn looked no different than most of the men she knew, so who was to say she hadn’t been around hundreds of shifters in her lifetime?

  “Now it’s my turn to ask questions,” Finn decided, lowering his hands onto the tops of his thighs and stretching his fingers open. “What were you running from the night I found you?” As if he knew what she was going to say next, he cut in before she could answer with, “Besides dogs.”

  Shifting on the bench, she lowered her head to stare at the tiles on the floor. She’d noticed them when she came in, but hadn’t really paid much attention to the patterns that adorned them. Now that she had something to avoid, she found herself studying them intently, recognizing the scene they mapped out in front of the altar: a great stag charging toward a distinctly female body stretching herself forward to accept him.

  The image from her dream, from the carving on Rhiorna’s ring. A familiar shudder rippled through her, and she found herself looking toward the altar statue again, half expecting Llorveth to burst into life and charge her right there in the middle of his own temple.

  “Lorelei?”

  “You know, I think it’s kind of funny that you know my name, but you never even told me yours… Finn.”

  “And why should I tell you my name if you already know it, Lorelei?” He smirked and put extra emphasis on her name before nudging his shoulder almost playfully into hers. “That seems more than just a bit redundant, don’t you think? Or is that just your clever way of steering me from the dogs that were chasing you?”

  “Your brother says you think everything is a game.”

  “Is that why you won’t answer my question, Princess? You want to play a game?”

  The suggestive tone of his question made her even more uncomfortable than she already was, her face flushing with unbearable heat and her heart quickening in her chest. “I’m not playing any game, and please don’t call me Princess.”

  “Isn’t that what you are? A princess?”

  “If what Rhiorna says is true, then no, I’m not.”

  “You look like a princess though,” he mused. “That nickname suits you. Lorelei the Princess. That is probably how you will be named by the historian after they cast us out. On the sixteenth day of the thirteenth month in the four-hundred and forty-third year of our Ladies, Lorelei the Princess and Mad Finn the Reckless were judged guilty of breaching the Edgelands Proclamation. Shackled in silver chains to prevent them from overpowering the guards who led them to the Rimian border, the two were cast out like a
n old pair of holey boots, never to be spoken of again in this land.”

  “You’re quite the storyteller.”

  He was trying to be cute and clever again, but his words frightened her more than he could have realized. When Rhiorna first told her they would be exiled from the Edgelands, some part of her actually believed she would be free to return to her father’s kingdom, free to expose Trystay’s plot, but if she could trust even half of what Master Davan told her about Rimian, there was no coming back from that place. It was a frozen wasteland of despair, populated by little more than frost giants, trolls and ice demons with a healthy appetite for living souls.

  “Thanks,” he grinned. “Now, considering I stuck my neck out for you and will more than likely be exiled for that kindness, I think you owe me a story. I want to know why you were running.”

  “Do they really call you Mad Finn the Reckless?”

  “Llorveth’s horns! And Vilnjar says I think everything is a game,” he snorted. “You’re doing it again, Princess. I may be mad and reckless, but I’m not an idiot. Stop avoiding the question.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  At the back of the temple she heard the echo of footsteps nearing the shadowed doors. Distress raised the fine hairs on her arms and legs and she trembled a little when she turned her head back and saw the outline of feet just outside. Time was running out, her time, and she’d only just woken from one nightmare and straight into another.

  “I just… I’m not really ready to talk about what I was running from. Not with a stranger, even if he did stick his neck out to save me.”

  For a moment she swore she saw him wince when she said the word stranger. An odd reaction, but he didn’t mention it. Instead he shrugged and said, “Fine, have it your way for now. I’m sure the council will want answers, though if they’re going to cast us out, you probably don’t have to tell them anything if you don’t really want to. But you and me, we’re going to become very well acquainted, I think, and I imagine we’ll have plenty of time to share all our dirty little secrets when we get to Rimian, assuming we can even hear each other talking over the howling wind.”

  She didn’t know what she was more afraid of, being cast out with a man who’d been named for his lack of sanity and grace, or the fact that she was never going to see her family again. At least when she’d been on her way to Hofft to marry a prince there had been the distant promise of seeing her mother and sister every so often, of seeing Pahjah again, but the repetitive realization that she would probably never see them again made her stomach feel weak and trembly.

  Gods, how had it come to this?

  Under her breath Lorelei silently swore to herself if she ever laid eyes on Trystay of Hofft again, she would kill him with her bare hands.

  The temple doors swung open and Finn released a perturbed sigh. “I suppose you’ve come to take us to our doom then.”

  Lorelei turned to inspect the shadow making his way into the room, almost relaxing when she saw it was only Vilnjar. She’d heard him talk of the council with Rhiorna just an hour or so earlier, asking what he was supposed to tell them. Did that mean he would stand in judgment against his own brother? She couldn’t imagine herself in that position, judging her own sister and determining her fate, no matter what the crime, but Vilnjar seemed as if he existed in some perpetual state of annoyance when it came to his brother.

  For all she knew, the U’lfer had no qualms in casting out their own flesh and blood. If the story Rhiorna told her was true, they’d betrayed Rognar easily enough.

  “Is it evening already?” she muttered, turning back around in the bench and seeking the statue of Llorveth as if that great hulking stag might actually bring her comfort.

  “The council will meet in two hours,” Vilnjar announced. “I thought you might want to know.”

  “Great,” Finn sneered. “Now we know. Is that all?”

  “Why must everything be a confrontation with you?”

  “I don’t know, maybe because every time you come looking for me, it’s with that gods awful scowl on your face, but don’t you worry, Viln. According to Rhiorna you won’t have to put up with me much longer.”

  “Put up with you? Is that what you think it is I do?”

  He arrived in front of the statue and turned inward to face them both. In the sun’s light streaming through the glass moons above the altar, he looked so stern, so severe, as if every bit of him had been chiseled from stone. When Lorelei lifted her head, she realized he was looking at his brother with an unspoken desperation bordering on exasperation.

  “For Llorveth’s sake, Finn, I came looking for you because I wanted to let you know that I am not going to let this happen. I promised our mother I would look after you, and I will not side with the council no matter what they say.”

  “I am not a little pup anymore. I don’t need you or anyone else to look after me.”

  “You may not be a little pup anymore, but I have a feeling you will act like one until the day you die, and I’ll be the one stuck with the task of walking around behind you cleaning up all your messes.”

  The bench moved several inches backward when Finn stood up in a huff of anger. “Is that what you think she is? Another one of my messes? Look at her! She’s alive, Viln.”

  “You twist my words.”

  “Just as you always twist my intentions. You think I saved her because I wanted to make waves in your precious council? Well, you’re wrong. I saved her because I had to. Because it was the right thing to do.”

  He threw his hand backward, index finger pointing in Lorelei’s direction. She shrank back, more startled by the depth of his bellow than the closeness of his clenched fist near her face.

  “All my life you did nothing but lecture me about how precious life was, how it was never to be taken lightly or for granted. She is a gods damned person, Vilnjar, a living being. Can you tell me right now that if the boot had been on the other foot and it had been you out there hunting with Rue you would have just walked away and left her there to die?”

  “If the boot had been on the other foot, I would have done the same thing. I agree with you.”

  Finn didn’t seem to hear what his brother said. He kept ranting, taking unintentional steps toward Vilnjar with every word he said until he was towering over the other man seething. Every breath he took drew attention to the broad span of his shoulders, and for the first time she realized he was so tall that even Vilnjar, who was a grown man standing at least six feet, looked small as a child in his younger brother’s shadow.

  “Every little thing, you turn it around so you can have another reason to martyr yourself. Poor Viln. His mummy and daddy died and left him all alone with two half-grown cubs in need of raising.”

  “Why do you always go there?”

  “Because it’s where you are. It’s where you always are, brewing with resentment and discontent.”

  Lorelei felt an overwhelming urge to rise and throw herself between them, but from her position at Finn’s back, his long, heavy shadow looming over her, she was too terrified to move. And her heart seemed to have picked up an incredible amount of speed, surges of adrenaline coursing through it as if some outside force were pumping it with a clenched fist. She gasped, lifting a hand to smooth across her chest, but the gentle, circular movement of her fingers across the skin did little to assuage the vessel inside her.

  Their voices and their tempers continued to escalate, and with every notch their argument rose, Lorelei’s heart pumped harder, faster, thumping like a rising drumbeat inside her chest until it felt like it was going to explode.

  “Stop it!” She hadn’t even realized she stood up until she was standing in between them as if she belonged there and pushing them apart. “Please, stop. Do you even hear yourselves? Some council is going to cast us into a frozen wasteland and the two of you are bickering like little children.”

  Stunned silent, two pairs of sharp, winter-blue eyes turned downward to look at her. Vilnjar took several steps
backward until her hand slipped off his chest and hung at her side. Finn moved into her hand, and she swore she could feel his heart beating against her palm, matching the furious rhythm pounding inside her. It startled her and she jerked her hand from him. Matching Vilnjar’s movement, she shuffled backward until she could feel the lip of the bench edging at the backs of her thighs again. Dropping into the pew with a startled breath, her hand moved up to press against her raging heart.

  Both of them were still staring at her, their mouths twitching over unformed, silent words. Vilnjar took a step toward her, but it was Finn who approached first, slowly walking over to kneel on the floor in front of her. He reached out and took her hands and they felt so tiny inside his, like a child’s hands as he caressed the tips of his thumbs across the insides of her palms.

  “Are you all right?”

  Tangled instincts battled inside her, urging her to wrench her hands free from his gentle grip, while whispering for her to hold on. She could feel his heartbeat through his skin, rhythm slowing, her own heart calming to match it. How was that even possible?

  “Lorelei?” Vilnjar arrived at Finn’s back, the sensitive query of his voice lifting her blurred gaze in his direction. She hadn’t even noticed the tears burning her eyes until she blinked, trails of warmth spilling down her cheeks and dripping onto her hands.

  “My heart,” she whispered. “Something is wrong with my heart. Ever since I woke here it has been so strange. As if it doesn’t beat the way it should, doesn’t answer to my body anymore.”

  Finn swallowed hard, the curve of his throat leaping against the action. “I’m sorry. It gets the best of me sometimes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My temper…”