Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  “He just comes to you when you call him?”

  “If he wishes.” Just as quickly as he’d swooped in, the bird spread his wings and took flight again, flapping away into the distance until he was little more than a black speck against the grey sky. “He’s a loyal friend and ally, but a very free spirit. I think sometimes he sticks to the skies because the cold of this place makes him long for Til Harethi.”

  “Birds,” Finn rolled his eyes, only to receive a curt elbow to the ribs from Lorelei.

  “You are from Thulasaliir?” she changed the subject.

  “My father was a raider before the War of Silence took him, just like yours. My mother told me that he traveled the world until he found his heart in Til Harethi.”

  “But that’s Alvarii land, is it not? In Thulasaliir?”

  “Aye.” Bren lowered the hood from his hair, revealing for the first time the pointed tips of his long ears jutting through the tangled mass of golden-brown braids he wore like a fierce mane around his face. “It is.”

  “Then you are half-blood, like me?”

  “My father was U’lfer, and my mother was Alvarii. When he and his raiders left Til Harethi, my mother refused to come with him because she knew her child would never be welcomed among his people. Children of the raid are thought unworthy by the U’lfer because our blood is impure.”

  The weight of that truth fell with a heavy thud in Finn’s mind. He’d smelled the wolf in their blood and hadn’t thought anything of it. Logren’s entire camp carried the familiar essence of his people, but they were different, just like Lorelei. A spark of understanding flared in his mind just seconds before he spoke the words, “Half-breeds.”

  Turning an embittered glare toward Finn, Bren’s lavender eyes narrowed with the worst kind of derision. “Yes, half-breeds.”

  “Bren,” Logren called from the front of their small caravan, whistling through his fingers and motioning for him to join them.

  “It would seem your brother requires my assistance,” he laughed uneasily, the hardness in his eyes softening as he turned his gaze to Lorelei and bowed his head almost submissively. “Please consider that cloak a gift, my lady. It will keep you warm on the long journey.”

  She reached up and tugged the fur-lined trim closer to her neck, snuggling deeper into its warmth. Finn didn’t want her to freeze, but the urge to tear it from her shoulders and stomp it into the ground was overwhelming.

  “I should have known,” he muttered, more to himself than her.

  “Should have known what?”

  “They’re half-breeds,” he grumbled. “All of them. Something about the scent of their blood was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until now.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “There is nothing good about being half an U’lfer.”

  He regretted the words instantly, her hurt gaze passing over him quickly before returning to the body of soldiers walking in front of her. All his life, he’d lived under the banner of that belief, the prejudice of what remained of his people embedded in every bit of propaganda they passed onto their few surviving children. His mother didn’t believe that hype, and obviously Rognar hadn’t either—considering he’d brought at least two known half-bred bastards into the world—but try as he might to follow his mother’s example of acceptance, he’d spent enough time listening to the men who taught him how to fight that many of their opinions rubbed off on him.

  There was nothing good about being half of anything, and being half an U’lfer was right up there with nothing at all.

  But Lorelei was only half-blooded; in all the time he’d spent with her over the last nine days that thought hadn’t even occurred to him.

  “I’m sorry,” he fumbled over those words. “I didn’t mean…”

  “I think you did mean it,” she huffed. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have said it.”

  “Lorelei, I…”

  “No, Finn. It’s all right. I think it was probably for the best that I heard you say it now, rather than later. Now I really know what you think of me, so I think it would be best if I didn’t taint you with my impure company.”

  “Lorelei, wait. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Stalking away from him, she pushed through the crowd of soldiers leading them through the snow, ducking in between bodies with no particular destination in mind.

  “Our mother is probably rolling in her grave right about now.” Vilnjar moved into place beside him, shaking his head as he turned a scolding glare in Finn’s direction. “When are you going to grow up?”

  “Mind your own business, Viln.”

  “If I did, there’s no telling what kind of trouble you’d get yourself into.”

  “Yeah, well, that’ll be my problem then, won’t it?”

  “Your problem?” Lowering his voice, he spoke through clenched teeth when he said, “We are at the mercy of these so-called half-breeds, in case you hadn’t noticed.” He held up his shackled wrists as a reminder of their current misfortune. “You’d do well to keep that in mind until we know what they have in store for us.”

  “I didn’t mean to…”

  “You never mean to, Finn. You never think. You just do and say whatever comes into that brain of yours, never anticipating the consequences of your actions. You just put the blade to the very same bigoted men who passed that foolish way of thinking onto you over a girl whose blood will never be as pure as yours.”

  “Her blood doesn’t matter to me.”

  “You could have fooled her.”

  Glancing through the crowd of bodies in front of them, Finn followed his brother’s gaze to her. She hadn’t stopped walking until she arrived between Logren and Bren and quickly immersed herself into conversation with them without even looking back.

  “If anything, you just gave her a very good reason to stay away from you, and why? Because you couldn’t stand the thought of another man showing her a little kindness?”

  “I wasn’t jealous.” he scowled.

  “You can lie to yourself all you like, little brother, but I know you. Competition has never been your forte. It’s all or nothing, and you’d never let yourself settle for nothing.”

  “He’s been kissing up to her since we got to their camp, fawning all over her like he’s got an agenda…”

  “Finn, I know whatever you feel inside you has to be pretty strong, but she’s not yours. Not yet.”

  “But she is mine.” His jaw hurt from clenching so tight, the muscles in his neck tensing so severely the ache spread across his shoulders. “Every part of me knows she’s mine.”

  “Until she knows it too, maybe you should choose your words and your actions a little more carefully. Otherwise she may never know it.”

  He didn’t thank his brother for that bit of wisdom, but he carried it with him for the rest of the day, staring longingly into the distance where Lorelei walked between Logren and Brendolowyn Raven-Storm.

  Brendolowyn. He scoffed. What kind of name was that for a man? Elvish to the point of feminine, just thinking the name inside his head made him scowl derisively. And to make matters worse he kept a bird for a companion. Wolves and birds didn’t mix, and if Brendolowyn didn’t watch his step where Lorelei was concerned, Finn knew one bird that was going to find himself between the jaws of a very angry wolf.

  Several times as morning passed into afternoon, the light sound of her laughter carried back to reach him through the crunch of snow beneath his own boots and the bitter howl of wind in his ears, tugging at his heart and flaring the guilt he felt over what he’d said. He hadn’t even noticed the cold when she’d been walking beside him, but now he felt it to his core. It was unnatural how attached to her felt already, how empty he felt in her absence.

  She was only a few paces ahead of him, but it felt like miles of tundra lay between them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Lorelei moved through the throng of bodies and they stepped aside to allow her room to pass until she fe
ll into step between Logren and Brendolowyn. She didn’t know why the things Finn said bothered her so much, but they did. If Rognar really was her father, did the taint of her blood disgust him too?

  She was the first person to confess she had exactly zero experience when it came to matters of the heart, but in the days leading up to that moment she’d actually started to let herself trust him. In fact, her growing certainty that Finn was one of the few people in the world she could actually trust made her feel like a fool. Logren, whom she didn’t trust at all, had been right. She should put her faith in no one at all. It broke her heart that lack of trust extended to the one person she wanted to believe in above all others.

  For the moment it was better if she put space between them and tried not to think about why the things he said bothered her so much.

  “My lady, this is a most pleasant surprise.” Brendolowyn lowered his head in humbled greeting, the flash of kindness in his eyes confusing the conclusions she’d been mulling over about trust. He had a kind face, sharp with exotic angles that reminded her of Pahjah—a woman she’d trusted above all others from the moment she was old enough to know her nursemaid would never let her come to harm. His wide eyes possessed the same tenderness and intelligence she’d come to expect from her nurse, and though she didn’t want to admit it to anyone, those similarities made her long for home and Pahjah in ways she hadn’t allowed herself to feel for days. “Is the cloak I brought you warm enough?”

  “Warmer than I expected it to be, thank you.”

  They had come down the other side of the mountain as the distant sun climbed toward its noonday peak. Endless miles of blinding white tundra stretched before them, decorated with windswept peaks of white and sparse trees. Without trees to break the force of the wind, it blew straight through them, whipping their hair and clothes like a cruel master and keening until her numb ears rang with its song. Snow squalls spiraled across the landscape for miles before them, lifting loose, hazy crystals of white across their pathway and disguising the horizon from time to time.

  She tugged the folds of that heavy cloak Brendolowyn laid over her shoulders tighter across her chest, holding them in place with gloved hands while she walked between them.

  “Is it all right if I walk with you for a while, brother?” She looked to Logren, who lowered a hand to rest on her shoulder. There was warmth in his eyes, a flare of joy that try as he might to disguise shown clear.

  “Of course,” he grinned. “I was hoping you would make your way to the front of the line. We’ve had so little time to speak and get to know one another and there is much I’ve wanted to say to you for as long as I can remember.”

  “I have many things I’d like to ask you,” she confessed.

  “Then we are of similar mind.” Unclenching his fingers, he lowered an arm across the back of her shoulders and for a time the two of them walked that way, brother draping his arm to hold her close to him, and Lorelei trying to feel something for the man she didn’t quite understand. “There are many things I’ve wanted to say to you as well.”

  She’d always wanted a brother, not to say she didn’t love her sister with all her heart, but it would have been nice if they’d an older brother to look after them. Perhaps a brother, in his dutiful obligation to protect his little sisters, might have seen right through Trystay and spared her from making such a grievous mistake in the first place. It was too late for that, she supposed, but not too late to get to know the brother she’d been given—even if they’d already lost so much time.

  Beside her, the mage lifted his hood again, his face nestled snugly within the soft fur trim of his cloak and framed by the tangled braids he wore. Little more than the tip of his nose was visible in the scope of her sideward glance, but she admired his profile secretly.

  “In light of everything, I imagine you must be feeling rather overwhelmed. You’ve been through a tremendous struggle since you left your home in Rivenn.”

  “It has been a little overwhelming,” though that felt like an understatement the moment she said it out loud. “One minute I was on my way to Hofft, and the next I was being exiled into the tundra by a group of people who hated me for reasons I can’t even begin to understand.” She chose her words carefully, keeping the details about Trystay to herself. “All my life I was told so many things that were untrue, including that Rimian was a barren wasteland with no life to speak of beyond trolls, wayward goblins and the rarely seen mountain giants that don’t often venture beyond the comfort of their rocky homes, and yet…” So many lies, so much dishonesty. Why? “Yet here you are with a band of men, and you’re leading me to more men in a city no one even knows exists.”

  “You were never meant to make it to Hofft,” Logren lamented, “were you, little sister?”

  She tried to hide the horror she felt when he asked her that, her immediate suspicion that he’d somehow been involved in Trystay’s plan making her feel paranoid, but only for a second. “How did you know that?”

  “I know a lot about you,” he confessed. “More than would probably seem reasonable for me to know since we have never met before now. The last twenty years of my life, I have made it my business to know everything there is to know about you.”

  “Twenty years… but I’m only seventeen.” She would be eighteen in a few months, so how could he have even known about her before she was born?

  Ignoring her point, he went on talking. “The betrayal that brought you to Drekne, the fear and mistrust you must be experiencing after such outright treachery. The way the Council of the Nine has treated you. I don’t blame you for not trusting us. After everything you’ve been through, I wouldn’t trust us either, but I promise you that all the answers you seek and more await you where we are going.”

  “Dunvarak?”

  “Yes.”

  Rhiorna had known things too. She’d shared just enough of what she knew to intrigue Lorelei and then left her holding a bag full of questions with no answers in sight. Llorveth had given her a single dream to reassure her she was on the right path, but since she’d woken from that tangle of bright imagery she hadn’t had a single sign of reassurance from the god who claimed to be guiding her on her path.

  Lorelei was tired of having everything dangled just within her reach and then yanked away when she finally had the courage to grasp it, but that wasn’t the fault of the man beside her. At least she didn’t think it was.

  Her foot caught on a chunk of ice and she stumbled in the snow. Bumping into Bren, the mage reached out to keep her from stumbling and there was an odd flash of warmth as his body heat mingled with her own. When he stepped away it was gone again, a harsh gust of air sweeping between them like a cold dagger. She swore he smiled just a little after their bodies had collided, and if she didn’t know better, she’d think he was flirting with her. That thought sent heat rushing into her face, and she cleared her throat before uttering the words, “Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome, my lady.”

  “You’ll have to pardon my friend,” Logren teased. “It’s been a long time since he’s been so close to an available woman who wasn’t either over forty or under the age of twelve.”

  “And you’ll have to excuse your brother,” Bren interjected. “He exaggerates to make me look the fool, when the truth is I have been dreaming of this day almost as long as I can remember.”

  Jittering nerves tickled her from within, the muscles of her stomach instinctively clenching and her cold face growing warmer with modesty. She’d have to be careful of Brendolowyn, it seemed. She’d have to avoid the charming, playful flash of his soft lavender eyes or else she would be in real trouble again. The last time she’d let someone sweet talk her, she’d wound up running for her life, and like she’d said to Finn the day before she was really tired of running.

  The mere thought of Finn stirred a twinge of strange longing inside her, and before she could stop herself she glanced back over her shoulder. Through a host of unfamiliar faces, she found his eye
s. Staring at her with unspoken apology, she immediately wanted to return to him, but then she remembered how much he disliked the tainted blood that coursed through her veins and she scowled at him. Returning her attention to her brother, Logren saw the red flush of her face and mistook it for embarrassment.

  “And now I’m afraid he’s made you blush. While I’m sure his flirtations are exactly as they seem, Brendolowyn meant what he said quite literally, Lorelei. We have all dreamed of you. Everyone in Dunvarak has been waiting for you for as long as we can remember.”

  “What do you mean, you dreamed of me?”

  “Dunvarak is an entire city brought together by the power of a dream. The dream of a graceful hand of light reaching into the darkest moments of our lives, promising to lead us to peace and salvation.”

  “You are our hope, my lady. Our light.”

  “I don’t understand what that means.”

  “In time, all will become clear,” Logren promised.

  “You keep saying that to me, but things have never been more hazy in my life.”

  “Our seer will explain everything she has seen when we arrive in Dunvarak, Lorelei, I promise you that. It is not my honor to tell you these truths, but I can tell you this: you are very precious to us all. Your coming was prophesied long before you were ever born, little sister. I have been waiting, the people of Dunvarak have been waiting a very long time for you to come.”

  Discomfort tightened the muscles in her already uneasy stomach, and for a time she walked between the two of them and said nothing at all. There was so much she wanted to know, so many questions she wanted to ask. How could an entire city of people have known of her coming to them before she was even born? It didn’t make sense, nothing in her life made sense at all anymore, but she had a feeling that even if the man at her right had the answers she sought to a great many of the questions roiling inside her like a storm, he wouldn’t share them.

  “You knew our father?”

  “For a time, I suppose I did. In truth, he wasn’t around very often, even before he left my mother.”