Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  Gods, her heart was beating faster than ever, and though she wanted to blame the bird for that, she knew it wasn’t entirely Hrafn’s fault. Being near Brendolowyn made her just as nervous as being near Finn, maybe more so because she couldn’t feel his emotions the same way. She didn’t know what he was thinking when he studied her with those intense, violet eyes of his.

  Brendolowyn laughed, a soft, musical sound. “So you decided to take a late night stroll through Dunvarak and just happened to find yourself in the lyceum library?”

  “No, not exactly,” she confessed. “I was looking for you actually. The archmage told me I could find you here.”

  The guilty part of her silently pointed out that she’d wanted to see him too, and not just because she thought he might know something about the things Yovenna told her.

  “Looking for me?” She couldn’t tell if that puzzled him or pleased him. “Is everything all right?” The perfect curve of his brow sharpened as he raised it.

  “Everything is… wrong,” it was her turn to chuckle.

  “Wrong? What do you mean?”

  “My visit with Yovenna today only served to raise more questions than to provide me with some of the answers I hoped to find here, but as I’m sure you already know you and Finn are to leave this place with me day after tomorrow to find the Horns of Llorveth at Great Sorrow’s Peak.”

  “Sorrow’s Peak,” he repeated, his nods long and thoughtful.

  “Yovenna said one of us will not return from this journey.” She took a few more steps toward him, focusing on Hrafn standing still as a statue on the table. From the corner of her eye she could see Brendolowyn, unmoving in front of the chair he’d been sitting in, the black of his robes hanging loose over his hands. Part of her wanted to look into his eyes when she said those words, while the other half didn’t want to see his reaction at all. Finn’s had been bad enough.

  “I will do everything in my power to ensure you return, Lorelei. You have my word.”

  “The thing is,” she started, locking her hands together at her waist, “I’m not really worried about myself, so much as I’m worried about you and Finn. I don’t want anyone to die for me, not any more than I want to die myself.”

  “What has been written has been written,” he said softly. “Whichever of us it is, it will be as the gods deemed it.”

  “But what if it could be changed?” she asked. “What if… I don’t know? What if the gods really had no control over anything at all, and the reason what has been written cannot be changed is because…” She stopped herself, finally lifting her eyes to meet with his.

  Bren tilted his head, the thick locks of his hair falling below his chin and across his chest with the movement. “Because of what?”

  “When you were a boy did your mother ever tell you the story of the Tid Ormen?” She held his gaze then, trying to gauge his reaction to her question, but if it struck anything in him it was impossible to tell just from his eyes.

  “My mother told me plenty of stories when I was a little boy,” he said, gesturing to the chair across the table from his. He gripped the roll of parchment in his hands and began skillfully winding it until it was a tight tube in his hands, then he secured it with a ribbon and dropped it into a leather satchel hanging off the back of his chair. “And that was one of them, yes.”

  Lorelei reached out for the back of the chair and drew it away from the table. The feet scraped loudly across the stone floor, echoing through the quiet library like a troll’s roar and making her feel even more self-conscious of her presence in that mystical place. She sat down slowly, worried Hrafn might not like her sitting there, but the bird didn’t seem to care one way or the other. Bren returned to his seat as well, leaning back until the joints below his shoulders cracked against the high back, and then he drew his arms in to rest them on the cleared table. His hands were ink-stained, black smudges smearing up the length of his palms and wrists and disappearing into his sleeves like the tattoos he wore.

  Hrafn walked toward him, the talons on his feet clacking across the wood until he arrived at Bren’s shoulder and ran the smooth curve of his beak affectionately along his cheek before burrowing into the thick, tangled braids of his hair.

  “Tell me the story your mother told,” she said, “please?”

  “Of course,” he conceded, his tongue moving across his lower lip to wet it before he began to speak. “Yovenna already told you the story of Foreln and Llorveth, and how the love of Madra spared our creator when his brother’s jealous wrath would see him killed, but before those dark times, when the elves were still young, and Heidr content with all he had created, he walked among us.”

  “Heidr walked among us?”

  “Some believe he walks among us still, watching, waiting, testing the children of his children to see if we are ready for the gifts he has given. But time and again he finds himself disappointed by our inability to grow and change, and so the curse he threw upon the world when one son raised his hand to the other remains. He has seen that the children of the gods are too much like their creators, filled with darkness, war, contempt and violence, but he believes that one day we will get it right.”

  “So is it true then, that everything that is written for us is only written because we are living the same cycles of time over and over and over again?”

  “That is what my people believe.” He brought his hand up and stroked down the bird’s back, caressing the feathers almost mindlessly as he tilted his head inward.

  “Why does no one ever speak of this? Why haven’t I ever heard this story before?”

  “Because your people don’t remember the days when Heidr walked this world, I expect,” he shrugged his shoulders. “There are those who think the serpent itself alters our memories, our thoughts, clouding them so we do not remember, but the Alvarii and the Ninvarii were the first, the oldest creations still living in this world, and our elders took great care in preserving the history they lived so that we might learn from their mistakes. We may not always remember the details, but they are written in our annals for reference and reminder.”

  “But if that is true, why have the elves never tried to make right the wrongs that angered Heidr in the first place?”

  “They are not our wrongs.” His answer came slowly, with a twinge of guilt that suggested he didn’t entirely believe the words he’d just spoken. “Which is not to say the Alvarii are perfect in any way, shape or form, my lady, but this punishment was wrought by Foreln and Llorveth, not our bright mother.”

  “And yet the Alvarii, the Ninvarii and everyone else under creation pays for those wrongs. Why wouldn’t your people want to make them right?”

  “I do not know,” he shook his head, sadness lengthening his eyes as he nearly closed them in thoughtful repose. “Perhaps because it is an invisible enemy. How does one battle time itself?”

  “Yovenna said I am to cut off the serpent’s head and break the curse so that our world can move forward again.”

  She said that so casually, as if she were telling him Yovenna had offered her tea and cakes while they were talking, not told her she was meant to do something so drastic and severe. Brendolowyn’s head snapped upright, the startled bird flapping his wings and squawking dismay before flying angrily back up to perch on the bookshelves at her back. It happened quickly, but still startled her, causing Lorelei to gasp and grip the table’s edge.

  “She has seen this?” he balked, leaning further across the table, his bright lavender eyes wider than she’d ever seen them.

  “Time and time again this task falls to me, she said. And every time I fail. But this time will be different.”

  “Did she say that as well?”

  “No.” Lorelei shook her head. “But if this is something I must keep doing again and again and again, I want this to be the last time I do it.”

  They were quiet for a long time after she said those words, the library and tower so silent she swore she heard someone sneeze several floors down.<
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  “Do you think I’ve said that before?” she asked him. “Last time and the time before that?”

  “I suppose you probably have.” A bemused grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “But how can you change what came before if you don’t know what was done wrong each time before? The seers,” he paused a moment, shaking his head. “The seers are forbidden to tell such intimate details as to allow us to change something so drastically. And it would take a very drastic change to even summon the Tid Ormen in order for it to be slain.”

  “Summon it? What do you mean?”

  “How can I explain this,” he muttered thoughtfully, his lips moving over the words before he tilted his head back and whispered something she didn’t understand. As he stretched his neck back, the collar of his robe shifted, and just below the hem of the fabric she saw another hint of black ink coloring the skin there. “Time is not something we can see,” he finally said, “and since the Tid Ormen is woven from the very fabric of time itself, we do not see it circling the world. For this reason, it goes on and on and on, devouring its own tail and holding us in the same cycle. Do you understand?”

  “I think so, but you said it could be summoned. Does that mean it could be seen?”

  “Only an alteration in the events we have all lived out time and again would summon it. The Alvarii say such and alteration would startle the serpent, and in fear of the shattering of his own existence it would rise to the challenge and reveal itself to all.”

  “So I would have to find a way to change what has already happened in order to make the serpent appear?”

  “In theory, yes.”

  She murmured an unintelligible sigh and started to push her chair away from the table. “Thank you, Bren.”

  “You’re welcome,” an awkward laugh followed. “Though I don’t see how I’ve helped you at all.”

  “You helped me make sense of something I didn’t quite understand.”

  “Does Yovenna really believe this is your destiny?”

  “She told me that the reason I was able to come to her, to save my people before I was ever even born, was because I’d found a way to fracture time, not destroy the serpent.”

  “But if you had fractured time, why would you need to come back to and tell yourself what you’d done? Wouldn’t the cycle have ended right then and there?”

  Lorelei swallowed hard, the sound in her throat so loud she swore everyone in Dunvarak must have heard it. That was the thing, wasn’t it? If she had found a way to free them, why were they still in the cycle? Only Yovenna didn’t know, and if she did, the old woman wasn’t saying.

  “I don’t know.” Her legs felt wobbly beneath her when she pushed herself to stand, but she made her body comply. “Archmage Audun said I should remind you that the hour is late,” she said, backing away from the table. “Thank you for helping me understand.”

  “I don’t know how I helped you at all,” he confessed, laughing uneasily again.

  “Nevertheless, you did, and I thank you. Good night, Brendolowyn.”

  “The night is dark, and though our streets are safe, they are probably unfamiliar to you. Could I walk you back to your brother’s house?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow, I’m sure.”

  “Lorelei…”

  “Please tell no one what we’ve talked about here this night.”

  “Of course I won’t, but…”

  She felt as if her feet couldn’t carry her fast enough away and she didn’t even know why. Through the library, down the stairs and back out the doors that had brought her illumination, she was grateful for the rush of the cold night air upon her skin. It was only a small piece of enlightenment, and it had done very little to comfort her as she’d hoped it might, but she supposed there would be very little in the way of comfort for her in the near, even the distant future.

  She was wrong about that though. Even as she crept guiltily back into her brother’s house, leaving her noisy boots outside the bedroom and sneaking in to crawl back into bed with Finn, she found comfort curling her body up to his, safety in his arms as she rested her head upon his chest. He never stirred, not even when she lifted her lips and kissed his cheek. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to wake him with kisses, give into all those things she’d told him and herself just a couple of hours earlier she wasn’t ready for.

  Would that be enough of a diversion from how she might have behaved in her last go around at life? Or was that exactly what she would have done?

  She guessed she’d never know because she was too scared to go through with it. She did reach across his waist and grab his hand though, curling her fingers into his and closing them, holding it gently.

  And that was how she fell asleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  “I really don’t see why this is necessary.” Lorelei groaned as she dropped her head and watched the mail ring sleeves drop down the lengths of her arms and swallow both hands. It fell with a metallic rush over her waist, swaying against her hips. “I came all this way without armor, why do I suddenly need it now?”

  “Because I said so.” Finn smirked down at her, his thick arms crossing his broad chest as he leaned back against the post outside the blacksmith’s shop to watch the fitting.

  “And I have done so many things because you said so how often?” She turned a snide look in his direction, but he only grinned at her in that sickening way that made Vilnjar want to smack him across the back of his head. “It’s so heavy. How does anyone actually fight in this stuff?”

  “If you think it’s heavy now, wait until you add the jerkin and tie a cloak around your neck. Then you’ll really have something to moan about.”

  “Or wait until something or someone tries to run you through,” Vilnjar added, tilting his head toward Frigga and watching her hunch down in front of the stool Lorelei stood on to take measurements. “You’ll be happy for it then, rest assured.”

  “You should listen to your brother, my lady.” The young woman glanced back over her shoulder at him, her lively blue eyes shimmering with admiration. “He is a wise man.”

  “He is not my brother,” she huffed.

  “Not yet.” Frigga shrugged, bouncing to her feet and taking a step back. “Hop down and take it off. I will make alterations to the proper length and have it ready for you before sundown. Had we more time to prepare, there would be no need, but the seers don’t exactly share their wisdom with blacksmiths, so we did not expect to be outfitting the both of you before your journey.”

  “I’m sorry,” the princess softened. “You have worked so hard for me, and I have shown you no gratitude.”

  “Knowing that the Light of Madra will be protected by armor I made for her is gratitude enough. Come, hop down now.”

  Lorelei stared down at the floor beneath her, leaning heavily forward under the weight of the mail she wore. She looked nervously to Finn, who stepped forward without a word, tucked his hands beneath her arms and lifted her off the stool as if she weighed little more than a child, armor and all. Vilnjar watched him help her struggle out of the weighty chain mail shirt, and then turn to hand it back to Frigga.

  “Now, my father was up this morning before the sun fashioning a blade fit for a little warrior,” she said, walking the armor to the bench and retrieving a steel shortsword from the rack on the wall behind it. “The archmage provided him with a series of enchantments you will find upon the blade. Protection and courage.” She flipped the pommel over her wrist, holding it toward the princess and urging her with a nod of her head to take it. “Both of which you will need if you are to do all the things the seer says you will do. After you test its worth, take the blade to lyceum and ask for Archmage Audun. He will know what to do to waken their magic of the runes.”

  Sunlight glinted off the blade, and Vilnjar’s eyes swept its blue-steel length. It was a beautiful weapon, and he had never been overly fond of weapons, but even more beautiful was the woman holding it. Frigga wore her hair down tha
t day, the curling golden waves of it hanging beautifully over her shoulders and back. She looked up at him, as if she felt more than just his eyes on her and while Lorelei took the blade from Frigga’s hand, the two of them continued to stare at one another.

  “Test its feel in the yard,” she looked away from Viln, refocusing her eyes on Lorelei for the moment.

  “Come on, Princess,” Finn lowered his hand to her shoulder and guided her away off the porch and into the yard beside the smithy. “It’s been a few days. Let’s see if you remember anything I taught you.”

  Vilnjar lingered behind, crossing his arms and watching the scene unfold. How the two of them would ever make it through what awaited them, he couldn’t even begin to guess. They were little more than children playing at being heroes; seeing Lorelei in that armor confirmed that thought in his mind. As much as he wanted to believe what Rhiorna told him was true, what the people of Dunvarak seemed to believe with all their hearts, he still couldn’t wrap his head around that little girl being anything more than what she was, even when she set her feet apart across from his brother and gripped the hilt of her shiny new blade tight.

  “And what about you?” Frigga asked, stepping up beside him and following the line of his gaze into the yard. “Will you be needing a sword, Vilnjar the Strong?”

  “Who? Me?” He laughed, the boisterous, self-righteousness of it fading quickly when he glanced sidelong and saw she was serious. “I’ve never been much of a sword man,” he confessed, carefully watching her face for signs of derision. “There is more wisdom in the mind than in the blade.”

  Instead she smiled, turning her eyes to meet with his as she said, “Perhaps one day I can show you that both mind and blade have their merits.” Returning her attention to the yard, his stare lingered on her profile, the perfectly carved strength of her high cheekbones, the slight upward curve of her dainty nose, the softness of her mouth beneath it, lips slightly parted as if she were getting ready to speak again, and then she did. “You worry about them,” she said, startling him from his admiration. “Do you not believe what the seers say? That together they will save our people?”