by Nichelle Rae
“H – how?”
“Azrel?” Another voice said. I turned and saw Reese approaching, looking curious and a bit worried. “Who are you talking to?”
I flinched and looked at him as if he were thick, or perhaps just blind. “What do you mean who am I talking too? Could it be the tall being standing right next to me?”
I looked at Lisswilla and saw his eyes were wrinkled in a smile again. I looked back at Reese and his brows knitted together. “Where?”
My eyes went wide and I looked at Lisswilla. “Why can’t he see you?”
“Because I’m not letting him see me. Just like I didn’t allow your blonde friend to see me a moment ago.”
“Well for Heaven’s sake! Let him see you before he thinks I’ve gone mad!”
Lisswilla laughed so merrily I couldn’t help chuckling along with him. “It’s just me, friend Reese.”
Reese’s grey eyes brightened with recognition. “Lisswilla,” he said softly, then came up to him and the two clasped wrists. “It’s wonderful to see you. Your timing is impeccable!”
My eyes shifted between them and one of my brows went up. “I take it you two know each other?”
“Yes,” Reese replied. “You see…”
I held my hand up to silence him. “Let me guess, Lisswilla is a part of the Deralilya’s team of protectors and you two met in that ‘other world’ of green light during the White Warriors meetings.”
Reese’s brows drew together. “Yes, but how did you know?”
I smiled. “A hunch.”
Reese looked back at Lisswilla. “I know you’ve been on your way for a long time, so I wasn’t sure when you would arrive.”
“When I crossed the Casdanarus boarder I traveled for months, following one false lead after another. Only recently did I have any kind of a good idea where she was.”
“Did your father give you this good idea of where she was?” Reese asked.
Lisswilla nodded and his eyes took on a faraway look. “It had been so long since I’d seen him.”
“It was a pleasant meeting then?”
“It was. Especially after I told him what position I held now for the new White Warrior.”
I looked at Lisswilla. “So you’re not from Casdanarus but your father is, and you hold a high position in the Deralilya’s ranks?” I nodded once. “I completely understand everything now.”
They both laughed. “My history will be explained another time, Azrel. For now, I will tell you that I rank just below the Deralilya. As she is your right hand lady, I am your left hand gentleman. I help command your protectors and if something happens to Lady Acalith, I will take her place.”
I nodded, really having little interest in this Deralilya business. I think I was still bitter my father had kept that information from me. “What about the wounded, Reese?”
Reese swallowed and looked down. “None were wounded.” My eyes went wide and he looked up. “All the Gleo’gwyns that fell were dead.”
I swallowed and started to shake, “How many?”
“Sixty-seven of the hundred.”
I pressed my lips together and closed my eyes, letting that overwhelming number sink in. My head suddenly became too heavy to hold up and my chin dropped to my chest. It was my fault. All this was my fault. I’d brought them in on this and now more than half were lost.
“Azrel,” Lisswilla said, stepping up to me and resting a hand on my shoulder. “This was not your fault. They joined you on their own and some evil made them weary at their most vulnerable moment. You had nothing to do with it. Do you understand?”
“You sound so sure,” I said a little defeated.
“I am sure.” I looked up at him and saw his eyes were smiling again as he dropped his hand from my shoulder.
I took a deep breath and forced a smile. “So where does one with such confidence come from?” I said as I walked towards the road. “You must be a Salynn if you have the magical ability to be invisible to one’s eyes.” I looked at him over my shoulder. “Unfortunately I don’t know much about Salynns outside of Casdanarus. Care to educate me?”
I faced forward again, then nearly fell backwards onto my butt because Yarin suddenly stood stone still right in my path. I pressed my hand to my chest trying to slow my pounding heart. He hadn’t been near me when I had looked over my shoulder!
“Yarin you scared the wits out of me!” I cried as I gathered my composure.
“I’m sorry. I came to see what was keeping you and Reese.”
“We’re coming,” I said and continued past him.
“Educate you on what?” Yarin asked as he fell into step beside me.
“What?”
“Before you faced me, you asked Reese to educate you on something.”
“Oh um,” Lisswilla didn’t want to be seen, and I would look like a loon anyway if I told him I was asking a Salynn from outside of Casdanarus about his history. “I was asking Reese to tell me,” I came to the edge of the road and stopped in my tracks and my eyes went wide again. I still couldn’t believe how many dead, “I was asking Reese to tell me how these Gorkors were all burned to death in a second!”
Yarin pursed his lips. “Well if you get educated on that, please share it.” He shook his head. “None of us have any idea how this came about, but it saved our lives. That’s for sure.”
“Gods!” I looked back over my shoulder at Lisswilla, still standing where I’d left him. I suspected he was responsible for this. His eyes twinkled mischievously. He winked and then held his hand out, palm up, and I watched as a yellow ball of wizard fire erupted in his hand. My mouth dropped! He was a wizard! Suddenly, before my eyes, he vanished in a puff of yellow smoke.
“Azrel?” Yarin said.
I closed my mouth then turned again to the grotesque sight of the battle. I jumped back when I saw Lisswilla standing on the other side of the road. I may not have been able to see his lips, but I knew he had to be smirking under that mask. He stood casually with his arms crossed over his chest, his back leaning against a tree with one foot up against it. I placed my hands on my hips and playfully glared at him, wondering if that was really necessary. He threw his head back and laughed.
“Azrel, are you okay?” Yarin asked.
I huffed a sigh. “Yes, I’m fine. Come on,” I said to Yarin. All of us except for Lisswilla began to help bury the men and burn the creatures.
The sun was setting by the time we lowered the last fallen Gleo`gwyn into the ground. I could barely hold my white tears back all day, unable to stop blaming myself for their deaths. I felt utterly responsible. I could have been more useful in the battle if I’d used my magic to save them, but I hadn’t. I couldn’t! Not yet.
When the last pile of Gorkors was set on fire, Reese and I embraced. I really needed his comfort right now, comfort that Ortheldo usually offered, but after today I was about three days behind him now. Yarin approached us with a hanging head. I put caution to the wind as the last orange haze of sunlight lit the distance mountaintops and I wrapped my arms around his neck. He graciously returned my embrace and buried his face in my neck.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to him. “I wish I could take back what happened to them. I’d give anything to return them to you, Yarin. They were good men.”
He nodded and pulled away. “Yes, they were.”
I looked towards Forfirith, who had been anxious and moody all day. He seemed to really want to get out of here. I couldn’t blame him though. I was so far behind the others I’d have to ride fast, with no sleep or rest for days. He knew it too, because every hour I stayed here was another hour of rest he was going to miss.
“You’re going now?” Yarin asked.
I looked towards him again and nodded. “Rest your men. We’ll meet again someday, Yarin.”
He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Yes, we will.”
I turned and walked towards my horse with Lisswilla and Reese in tow. I threw my leg over Forfirith and mounted, then looked at Reese as h
e attempted to mount his. He was so exhausted that he couldn’t even manage without Lisswilla giving him a boost into the saddle.
“Reese, I’m not asking you to come with me. If you want –”
“Please don’t finish that sentence Azrel,” he interrupted, “unless you take delight in insulting me.” His tired, red-rimmed eyes twinkled and a small smile came across his lips. “I go where you go, always. If I can’t prove myself now, when can I ever?”
I pressed my lips together and sighed. “Very well, but I need to warn you that we’re not stopping.” Reese only nodded.
“Here,” Lisswilla said as he mounted his own horse of grey and white. “Drink this.” He handed Reese a water skin. “It will help keep you strong and alert for two days. But when those two days are up, you’ll crash into such a deep a sleep that a battle like this won’t even wake you. Nothing, not even riding full speed on a horse, will wake you up for twelve hours.”
Reese smiled and pulled open the skin. “That suits me just fine.” He drank the entire thing. Before he even lowered the skin from his lips he became wide awake. “Whoa!” he cried, then shook his head vigorously. “Where has that stuff been my whole life?”
Lisswilla chuckled. “In my wizard closet back home. It’s my own special recipe. I lived on this stuff during my journey here.”
“All right, Mr. Wizard,” I said looking at Lisswilla with a small smile. “What’s your story?”
“Another time, Azrel. We’re in a hurry. First, I have to ask you”—his eyes became intense and full of concern—“where is the Anarran Gem?”
Chapter Eleven
Rabryn
A week! It had been over a bloody week since we’d left Rocksheloc and there was still no sign of Azrel. Ortheldo and I seemed to be the only ones concerned. Acalith was the most collected of us all, though none of us communicated with her much.
I found myself completely captivated by her. The mystery surrounding her went so deep I was memorized. I knew little more about her than her name, but she fascinated me. When once I did manage to talk to her, I asked her if her homeland (wherever that was) would be missing her, making it clear (after realizing how that must have sounded) that I wasn’t trying to get rid of her and was only worried for her safety. If she were found missing and discovered to be of highest rank in the White Warrior’s chain of command, the consequences could possibly be sever.
The corners of her eyes went up in a smile that was forever hidden by that tan mask. “I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”
I turned red. I knew she could take care of herself. I quickly felt like a fool for trying to talk to her.
“Thank you though,” she said, her eyes sparking with a kind light. “It’s been a long time since anyone has taken my welfare into consideration.”
And that’s where it ended.
Ortheldo sat across the fire from me right now with Cairikson asleep in his arms. Addredoc was lying on his stomach, studying the maps we retrieved from Azrel’s room. Thrawyn and Meddyn sat a few feet away against a tree, Thrawyn holding his wife in his arms. They looked so peaceful and so beautifully angelic as they sang a lovely song in Salynnian. I couldn’t understand the words, but the small woodland we sat in seemed to fill with the soft music of their voices. I let it flow through me so just maybe I could be as at ease as they were, even with Azrel gone.
“I have such a weakness for music,” Ortheldo suddenly said. I looked at him as he stared wistfully into the fire, cradling Cairikson in his arms. “I always have for some reason. When I hear any music, it’s like my heart reaches back to some long distant memory from when I was a child.”
I looked at him, having never seen him so peaceful and content. I found myself suddenly very curious about his life before he met Azrel and her father, but I feared if I spoke I would destroy this moment for him. He stared into the fire, and as Thrawyn and Meddyn began their song again, his eyes dropped closed and he began to sing with them in the common speech.
Come Lonely Warrior the Time is Near
Time to Face Your Greatest Fear
Done is How the Past Ever Stands
Look to the Future, For It’s In Your Hands
Go Forth with the Courage You Know You Have Inside
Evil has Harkened and Its Time It will Bide
Fear Not what Has Been, but Fear What is To Be
If the Warrior Stays Buried ’Neath the Past ’Neath the Sea
Accept Yourself and Who You Are Inside
Dig Her from the Past and Allow her to Survive
O Azrel, Lone Star in The Sky
Shine Mightily Bright from Far, Upon High
I smiled at the full translation of it, and at Ortheldo’s rather lovely singing voice. Addredoc nodded in admiration towards his parents, and I nodded to Ortheldo. He turned a little red and looked down at Cairikson.
I sighed and turned my eyes to Acalith. I gazed longingly in the direction in which she looked, the direction from which hopefully Azrel would come soon, and I absently started biting my nails. This was the longest amount of time we had ever been apart since the day we met. My mind suddenly started racing with wonders and thoughts.
How odd that only a month ago I had been at the Spring Arrival Celebration in The Pitt. I hadn’t cared about anything in the world except for Azrel. Now I was riding across Casdanarus with people I barely knew, but loved like family, in a race against time to find a magic necklace owner in hopes of saving Casdanarus. All the while, I’d been watching Azrel battle her inner demons, even as she was being hunted by the most vile Evil the world had ever known, an Evil she was supposed to destroy.
The return of Shadow to the world. The magnitude of that was too much for me to grasp, and I didn’t even know anything about the first Evil, The Nameless One, that had taken over the world over ten millennia ago. All I knew was that it was an Evil so great that the Light Gods Themselves had to interfere to defeat it.
Every time I found myself considering what a Second Shadow meant for existence, I became overwhelmed and pushed the thoughts away. I was going to lose my mind if I kept thinking about it.
“Are you okay?” Ortheldo asked.
I stopped my nail biting, nodded, and looked into the fire. “I just wish Azrel were here.”
“Because you think if she were here, you would have a better chance of striking up a conversation with Acalith?”
I glared at him from under my brows, then chuckled when the wide smile came to his face. I tossed a berry at him. It hit him square in the nose and bounced to the ground. “No, I’m worried about Azrel.”
Ortheldo nodded and looked to the Northwest, “Me too.”
“I do find it odd though that we’ve spent the past week with her, everything about her, even her face, is still a mystery.”
“It could be one of two things,” Addredoc piped in, keeping his eyes on the maps. “She doesn’t want any of us to recognize her, or she’s not allowed to show her face until Azrel officially names her the Deralilya and gives her a steel weapon.”
“So you’ve never seen her face either?” I asked, rather surprised. Addredoc shook his head. “You haven’t asked her anything about herself during those meetings of yours?”
He looked up from the pile of papers. “When the White Warrior meets with us, it’s strictly business. We don’t have time for side conversations with each other.”
“Oh,” I said and looked towards Acalith again.
She stood up a moment later and came towards us. “All of you get some sleep. I’ve got first watch.”
I smiled. “As always.”
The corners of her eyes went up. “As always.”
I felt my face heat up as she crossed my view on her way to begin her watch. I probably had the most ridiculous grin on my face as I watched her walk away because, as soon as she was out of sight, Addredoc and Ortheldo started snickering. When I glanced at them they both started laughing at me and I only turned a deeper shade of red.
Ortheldo
stood next, tenderly holding Cairikson in his arms. He laid the boy down first in his sleeping gear, even kissing his forehead, then covered him up and laid down behind him. I took up the bucket of water at my side while Addredoc, Meddyn and Thrawyn all settled in. After stealing one last glance at Acalith’s back, I poured the water over the fire.
I lay there awake for a while, thinking about my sister. I was getting a little frightened without her. I knew I was just being childish, but I wanted her there to talk to, to laugh with.
My eyes then settled on Cairikson. It was his birthday tomorrow. If Azrel showed up, it would be the best gift he could get. The best gift we both could get.
I was awoken at the first light of dawn by someone shaking my shoulder. When I opened my eyes I saw Acalith looking down at me, a little alarmed. “Rabryn, get up. We have to get out of here,” she whispered urgently.
“What’s wrong?”
“Evil is lurking about.”
I began to look around our little campground, my heart pounding. Ortheldo was still asleep across from me, but Cairikson was already mounted on Urylia. Addredoc, Meddyn and Thrawyn were silently packing up the horses, looking frightfully anxious.
“You walk softly like your kin,” Acalith whispered, “so you can move about freely and help pack up. Ortheldo and I will wait for aid to mount.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “So there are no Sallybreath Flowers hidden under that tan hood of yours?”
“I didn’t say that.”
My brows went up. “So then there are?”
The corners of her eyes curved up in a smile. “I didn’t say that either.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes playfully. “I suppose by now I should know better than to try asking you questions.”
We both laughed softly, then I quickly got to my feet and began to help pack the horses. When Acalith had tiptoed to Ortheldo and gotten him up, they both stood still in one spot, waiting for us to finish packing. Then, one by one, they were lifted off the ground by Meddyn’s red Salynn magic and placed on top of their horses. I mounted Eleclya, who stood right next to Ortheldo’s horse.
