Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  The sound of his brother’s embittered scoff was enough to warrant a hard look from Lorelei, which she withdrew almost as quickly as she’d thrown it in his direction, returning her focus to Logren.

  “Our people,” Logren said. “The people of Dunvarak, they are your people too, little sister.”

  As if she did not hear him, she went on in a distant tone. “We will follow the southern shores east to avoid as much of Leithe as possible, and then cut north. Yovenna said we should try to find a ship in the south to carry us to the port.”

  “And if you don’t come across a ship? Will you journey all the way to Port Felar on foot?”

  “If that is what the gods will for us, yes,” she nodded, and then focused again on her stew for a while. Everyone watched her, as if waiting for some other scrap of information she was willing to share from her long day with the seer.

  She gave them nothing. Not until Logren pressed her further for more details.

  “You plan to leave day after next?”

  “According to the seer’s vision, that is the day we are set to embark. Our journey to Great Sorrow’s Peak will take weeks. She also told me that though three of us will leave this place, only two of us will return, though she has not said which will be lost, and I highly doubt she will. She guards her secrets well and believes she has told me all I need to know to achieve the task I’ve been given.”

  She finally did lift her eyes toward Finn then, her stare lingering long on him in the uncomfortable silence, a sadness about her that touched Vilnjar in such a way that he had to look away. She knew more than she was saying, but she did not share it and though his curiosity weighed heavy on his mind, he almost didn’t want to know what secrets she was keeping. If she knew his brother was meant to die, he did not want to hear it said.

  Finally she pushed the bowl away from her, the half-empty contents were more than he’d seen her eat since they’d left Drekne, but it still seemed more than a small bird might consume.

  “I am very tired,” she confessed. “Today was longer than I ever expected and there are many preparations to be made on the morrow. I know you all must have so many questions and I will try to answer as many of them as I can tomorrow.”

  “Get some rest, little sister,” Logren conceded with a nod, all eyes watching as she rose from the table. He reached out to curl his fingers around her forearm, lifting a tender gaze to her face. She offered only a small smile, and then withdrew her arm.

  She didn’t look back, not even when she disappeared through the first door on the left and quietly closed it behind her.

  Finn’s stare lingered after her when she disappeared down the hallway, the flagon of mead in his hand still half-full. Viln had never seen his brother leave a drink unfinished, but after a few silent moments he lowered the vessel to the tabletop and excused himself with nothing more than, “Good night, all.”

  “I can’t imagine the things she has learned today were very easy for her to hear,” Viina lamented, leaning down to remove the bowl from the table. “She’s so young. So much is expected of her…” Her voice trailed into silence and for a time the three of them had nothing more to say.

  “The gods would not have chosen her if they did not think she could handle it.”

  It took everything Vilnjar had inside not to argue that point. Over the last couple days he’d learned just how steadfast Logren was in his beliefs, and as much as he hated to admit his brother was right, he was a guest in the other man’s home. Rocking the boat was as surefire way to find himself out of Dunvarak and wandering through Rimian alone.

  It wasn’t long before Viina excused herself with a polite goodnight and a very obvious look at her husband that she would not wait up late for him. Logren promised he would not be long, then reached for the pitcher of mead in the center of the table to refill his cup. He started to pour into Vilnjar’s mug too, but he lifted a hand to stop him, shaking his head.

  “I’ve had more than my share already,” he confessed with an uneasy laugh. “I want a clear head tomorrow.”

  Logren drew in a breath through his nose, the wide nostrils flaring and mustaches twitching when he exhaled. “Some days a clear head is highly overrated. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be one of those days.”

  “Your father used to say that quite often, when he and my father were sitting around the table emptying barrels of mead and ale,” he remembered. “But I am not my father, and if I am welcome to stay here once my brother is gone, I should look for work.”

  “Of work, there is plenty. You will have no trouble finding it.” He clutched the handle of his cup and tossed the contents back, swallowing hard and loud, several gulps until he reached the bottom and lowered the empty cup to the table again with a loud thunk. He filled it again, but only held the full cup in front of him quietly for a long time.

  The house was so silent he could actually hear Lorelei and Finn’s muffled, but raised voices through the thin walls that separated them, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The greatest part of him didn’t want to know, but he found himself straining to see what he could hear anyway.

  “Are you truly prepared to just let him go?” Logren finally asked, glancing toward the sound of those voices, as if he too had been trying to hear what they were saying. “Knowing he might never return, will you just let him leave this place without a fight?”

  “He is a man grown,” Vilnjar said softly, a twinge of lament tightening at his core. “I promised my mother I would always look after him, but he has to make his own way in this world. Besides, if your seer has already seen this journey for him, I’m obviously unable to stop him from going.”

  “What happened to your blasphemous but steadfast belief in free will, old friend?” Logren baited him, a clever, taunting smile jerking at the corner of his mouth.

  “Unfortunately my brother does not share in my philosophy on free will.” He lifted his tankard to his lips, allowing the mead within to wet them before he took a slow, deliberate drink. “If a seer tells him he is to be someone, go somewhere, he will do everything in his power to make that happen.”

  “Do you really believe he would have a choice in the matter if he wished to change what was written for him?”

  “We all have a choice, my old friend. Most of us are simply too afraid to make it.”

  He knew what the other man was doing; as children they had witnessed many such arguments between Rognar and Deken, the two of them guzzling mead until they could barely stand and debating philosophy until they were blue in the face and so angry with each other the only thing keeping them from tearing each other apart was their intense love for one another. Only Vilnjar didn’t have that same kind of bond with Logren. Maybe if things had turned out differently, if they’d faced life’s hardships together, rather than hundreds of miles apart... For all he knew, they would never share that kind of brotherhood between them.

  Lowering his cup to the table again, he pushed it away and stood up.

  “Good night, gracious host. I am making a choice to get some sleep. Lorelei is right. Tomorrow promises to be a long day. I would like to be well-rested for it.”

  “You are only sleeping because the gods deem it so,” Logren called after him, a goading grin twitching beneath his mustache, but Vilnjar didn’t take the bait.

  He ducked into the small room his hosts offered to him the night before. It was little more than a pantry stocked with grain, dried goods and three tall barrels of mead. He had only a bedroll on the floor, and the room itself was dark without a lantern, but at least he had a bit of privacy to unwind with his thoughts as he drifted off to sleep.

  He could close his eyes and almost imagine he was at home, sleeping in his own bed, but after tugging out of his shirt and peeling off his boots, he climbed into his bedroll and wriggled around until well after he was comfortable.

  It was not home he thought of when he finally closed his eyes, but the last words Logren had said to him as he disappeared ba
ck the hallway. Was he truly only sleeping because the gods deemed it so, or had it been his own choice? It was a simple thought, a completely unimportant notion, but he hated the idea of not having any say over even the simplest of matters in his life.

  Like the blacksmith’s daughter, Frigga, for instance. A flashing image of her wary smile when she caught him watching her set fire to his blood, that intense feeling of need he’d experienced in her presence making him clench his fists at his sides. Not that there was anything wrong with that beautiful young woman, not that he didn’t want her, but if she was his soul’s mate, as he suspected, he worried he would spend the rest of his life wondering if he really loved her, or if they’d only come together because the gods willed it so.

  His mother had always spoken so highly of the bond between two mated wolves, two halves of the same soul bound together for all eternity, but if those conventions didn’t expand beyond the U’lfer, what did that say about a half-bred soul like Lorelei, who was free to choose between the wolf that was mated to her, and someone else entirely?

  Why didn’t the U’lfer have a choice? What kind of cruel gods had deemed such a thing fair?

  Oddly enough, his lack of choice in the matter did very little to quell his heart’s sudden awakening, its longing for the fair Frigga, with soot smudges across her brow and hair like fine-spun gold clinging to the sweat beading and dripping down her temples. What he wouldn’t give to loosen the leather strip she had tied her hair back with and let the flowing beauty of her golden hair fall free around her shoulders, to run his hand into its softness before burying his face into it and breathing in her scent.

  Frigga.

  She didn’t even know his name, but had already found a place in his heart.

  And that made Vilnjar feel like a complete and total hypocrite.

  He huffed and rolled onto his side, jamming his frustrated hands beneath his head but finding no comfort. Long into the wee hours of the morning, after Finn and Lorelei stopped bickering and Logren’s boot-steps carried him to bed, Vilnjar tossed and turned, stared into the darkness and wondered if his sleeplessness was the gods trying to make a point, or if it was just the pressure of his own troubled thoughts keeping him awake.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Lorelei ruined his whole day. Being apart from her left Finn feeling empty and strange, as if some critical part of his essence had been torn from his body and he was expected to go on living without it. He was clumsy, awkward, and even worse, it seemed he was under the watchful scrutiny of every man, woman and child in Dunvarak. He was mate to the Light of Madra, her sworn guardian and protector, and everyone in that city knew he was coming long before he arrived.

  Oddly enough, it gave him a little insight into what Lorelei must have been feeling while she listened to people talk about a mate she hadn’t chosen for herself, tasks she’d done but couldn’t remember and the journey the gods planned for her to take in order to save a race of people she hadn’t even known existed. They had expectations of him too; he could feel it in every look, and while being important always seemed like it might be great, it certainly didn’t feel that way.

  He spent the day with Logren, who took him and his brother on a tour of the city. He stumbled over his own feet as he walked, eyes always searching the streets for Lorelei. He tripped into carts in the market square and sent a palette of strange fruits unlike any he’d ever seen before rolling into the street. He barely escaped a threat on his life from the enraged vendor, who shook his fist and called him a clumsy ogre in front of everyone in the market.

  After a while he started to feel like it was her fault he was having such a bad day. Before she came along, he’d been able to walk on his own two feet just fine, but now he could barely even function if she wasn’t beside him. It was, for lack of a better word, ridiculous, and he was furious with her for making him feel that way. She hadn’t even said goodbye to him before she marched off to the bathhouse with Viina, hadn’t even looked in his direction before she left. That coupled with his new found knowledge that he might very well die sometime in the next few weeks soured his mood, and he fully intended to return every bit of her brooding behavior when she returned from the seer.

  But as the hours wore on, one into the next as the sun made its journey across the sky, he started to miss her and found himself wishing she would just walk into Logren’s house and smile at him again.

  He should have found his dependence on her smile disturbing, considering he’d never felt so attached to another being in his eighteen years, but being near her was a comfort unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He never wanted to be apart from her, especially if their time together was as limited as Hodon suggested it might be.

  After spending the entire day lamenting that possibility and wondering why she’d been so short-tempered with him, he finally resigned himself to just picking up with her as if nothing had changed when she returned from the seer. Only when she finally came back something about her had changed. He could feel it in the rhythms of her heart, the almost melancholy ebb and flow of her guarded mood. The one time she turned to look at him after sitting down to the table to eat, it had been an almost scornful glare, cutting short any plans he’d made about just picking up with her where they’d left off.

  He opened the door slowly, peeking his head around first to make sure she was clothed before just barging in. Not that he didn’t want to see what she looked like unclothed, but he already felt like he was on thin ice with her. The last thing he wanted was to make her even madder at him than she already seemed to be for reasons he could barely understand.

  She sat on the edge of the small bed in the far corner of the room, the loose braids of her hair hanging down to cover her face, which she’d buried in her hands. Her shoulders shook with quiet sobs that didn’t stop, even after he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. The onslaught of her emotional distress overwhelmed him completely; feelings of panic mixed with fear, then coupled with self-conscious awareness that he was not only watching her cry, but experiencing what she was feeling. It all moved through him so fast, he hardly had time to get a handle on it.

  “Princess?” He took a tentative step toward the bed, half-expecting her to snap at him, but she didn’t. She sniffled and jerked her head up, as if she hadn’t heard him come in, and quickly brushed the streams of tears from her pink cheeks. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head, her damp hands disappearing into the folds of green fabric covering her lap. It darkened against her wet palms, smudged spots from the tears she seemed desperate to hide from him.

  She still didn’t seem to understand there was nothing she could ever hide from him, at least nothing she was feeling anyway.

  “People don’t usually cry when there’s nothing wrong,” he pointed out, the general teasing tone he’d been using with her since they met crept out to lighten the mood, but she wasn’t amused. Another step and he was standing almost in front of her, so close he could practically feel the heat of her body emanating toward him, beckoning him closer.

  Take me into your arms, that heat seemed to say, make me feel safe and warm and promise nothing bad will ever happen.

  “Maybe I’m crying because I’m happy,” she snapped a little, causing him to retract the last step he’d taken. “People cry when they’re happy all the time.”

  Gulping down the rising anxiety he felt, his arms just hung at his sides like two heavy weights that wanted desperately to soften and wrap around her, to hold her close to his chest so he could make those promise he wasn’t sure he could keep. Bad things happened all the time, and he couldn’t stop any of them, but he sure as hell would die trying to keep them from ever happening to her. She had to know that, had to feel it.

  “True, but you don’t exactly look happy right now. Come on, Princess,” he urged. “Tell me what’s wrong. Was it something you learned from the seer?”

  His death, maybe? Would she even cry over such a thing?
/>
  “Please, Finn,” she shook her head and sniffled again. “I don’t want to talk about anything I learned from the seer. Even if it is all anyone wants to hear me talk about.”

  “I don’t want to hear you talk about that,” he protested. “I just want to know what’s got you so upset, that’s all. I can feel it, Lorelei.” He couldn’t stop himself from saying it. It just came out, followed by, “Don’t you understand that. Everything you feel, I feel it too when you are near me. Your anger, your annoyance with me,” he paused, reaching out to grip her chin beneath his thumb and forefinger so he could lift her face to look at him, “your fear. You’re so afraid right now. Your body is trembling, your heart is beating so much faster than it should.”

  “Do you have any idea how disturbing that is?” She pushed his hand away, trying to harden herself against him and failing miserably. “How unnerving it is to know I can’t even have a thought of my own without you experiencing the emotions it stirs inside me? It’s not natural, Finn.”

  “It is the most natural thing in the world, Princess,” he protested. “There is a part of my soul inside you.”

  “I didn’t ask to carry a part of your soul.” She looked away again, lowered her head and stared down at the hands in her lap. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask to be bonded to you and I didn’t ask to be the savior these people expect me to be.”

  “We never ask for what we get, Lorelei.” The hardness of his own voice surprised even him, and he regretted it when he saw her flinch back a little at his tone. “The gods give it to us whether we want it or not. It’s up to us to make the best of what they offer up. Do you think I wanted to be mated to some stuck up little Princess who doesn’t even know how to wake the wolf inside her?”

  “If you dislike me so much, maybe you should find another mate,” she shot back quickly.