Souls of Aredyrah 3 - The Taking of the Dawn

by Tracy A. Akers

  “But—”

  “Ye heard me, boy. Since your little performance at the Festival a few months back, things have gone bad for the clans.”

  “What do you mean?” Dayn asked, but he was sure he already knew.

  “It didn’t take much for the townsfolk to buy into Sheireadan’s rantin’s that ye’d revealed yourself as a demon. Talk grew from ye bein’ one, to the role your family and the clans played in it. We were harborers of evil, they said, so were breakin’ the law.”

  “But, I’m not a demon,” Dayn insisted. “I give my word—”

  Haskel scowled. “Your word’s not good for much around here. And now neither is mine, or anyone else’s in the family.”

  “So the clans won’t believe me either.”

  “Listen, most of the clans support ye and your mother—even though it’s put ‘em in danger. All the clans left the Festival early that day. Several members stopped by your folks’ place on the way home, along with me, your Uncle Nort, and a few others. By the time we arrived, your father’d already taken off, and your mother…well, let’s just say she was in no condition to be left alone. Vania and some of the women folk stayed with her, while me and the men headed out to search for your father. We gathered other members along the way and searched for days. When we reached the cave…” Haskel paused, his expression grim. “Ye know the rest.” He kicked his heels and reined his horse back to the path.

  Dayn urged his mount after him. “What does that have to do with the Vestry?” he asked.

  “The Vestry sent some men the next day to fetch ye and your father for a hearin’. When they discovered neither of ye were there, they threatened to take your mother instead. But Vania…” Haskel’s lips curled with satisfaction. “Well, let’s just say she told the bastards what’s what.

  “When we got back, we had a tough time talkin’ your mother into goin’ to our place with us. Ye’d been gone nearly five days, but she insisted ye’d all be home soon, and that she needed to be there when ye did. Vania reminded her that the Vestry’s men might be back, that she wouldn’t be safe there on her own. Only when I promised to check on your place every few days did she agree to go with us. We told her to pack as much as she could so it would look like she’d taken off for good. We knew if the Vestry returned, they’d think twice before headin’ further up the mountain huntin’ for her. But we also figured if Gorman, or you and your sister, returned and didn’t find anyone at your place, the next thing any of ye’d do would be to go to our place. It was the best ruse we knew of to get your mother to agree to go with us.”

  Dayn felt a wave of regret for all the suffering he realized he’d put them through. “Thanks…for looking after Mother,” he said, “and for—”

  Haskel grunted. “No need.”

  They rode on without speaking for a time, until at last Dayn broke the silence. “How did you know where to find me, tonight I mean?”

  “Your sister told me.”

  “What did she tell you, exactly?”

  Haskel cleared his throat. “That ye have affection for Falyn and had likely gone to find her. Since your mother mentioned we’d seen her recently at the springs, it seemed the most likely place to start.”

  “I have more than affection for her, uncle. I love her.”

  Haskel looked surprised, then frowned his disapproval. “Ye’d do better to turn your heart elsewhere,” he said.

  “If you’d been told to turn your heart from Vania, would you have?”

  A hint of humor played on Haskel’s face, then he cleared his throat again. “No, I s’pose not.”

  “Then why is it so wrong for me to love Falyn?”

  “It isn’t wrong, it’s just—dangerous.”

  “I’d risk anything for her.”

  “Even her life?”

  “Her life?” Dayn said with alarm.

  “If she’s caught with ye, she’ll be more than disciplined. Ye heard what her father said about purgin’ his children’s souls.”

  “You heard that?”

  “Aye. And Lorcan takes his children’s souls very seriously. From the look of the injuries on his son’s back, I’d say Sheireadan’s soul was Lorcan’s primary concern tonight. No father should do what Lorcan does, and no son should have to endure it.”

  It occurred to Dayn that although Haskel had not, in Dayn’s mind, been the best of fathers, at least he had never had a reputation for violence. If anything, he had only tried to protect Eyan from people like Lorcan and the members of the Vestry.

  “Uncle?”

  Haskel gave another grunt.

  “What I said to you about Father, I’m sorry.”

  Haskel’s expression relaxed somewhat, but his tone remained stiff. “I’m sorry, too.”

  “Did you try to enter the cave? I mean—”

  “Aye. But a landslide had blocked the path, and we could go no further. I feel certain that’s where your father met his fate.”

  Tears stung Dayn’s eyes as he realized it was his own fault that his father was dead. Gorman would never have gone back to the cave if Dayn had not run away and entered it.

  “You and your sister’ll have time to grieve,” Haskel said in response to Dayn’s obvious anxiety, “but right now your mother needs your courage.”

  Dayn swallowed thickly. “She’s grave ill, isn’t she?”

  “Aye.”

  “Am I the cause of it?”

  “Aye.” He glanced at Dayn. “And no.”

  Dayn remained silent, sorting through his remorse.

  “You and your sister are back now. There’s no better medicine for her than that. But soon there’ll be more pressin’ issues to deal with.”

  Dayn did not have to ask what his uncle meant. Memories of spell-work done at his parents’ house, and his own recent altercation with Lorcan, made the meaning clear. “What are we to do?” he asked.

  “We must call a gatherin’ of the clans. Lorcan’ll not let this go. He’s the one that started the crusade against you and your parents to begin with. The anger of the mountain gave him more leverage. Now that he knows ye’ve returned…well…let’s just say he wasn’t bluffin’ when he said the clans’ll be hearin’ from the Vestry.”

  “But what can the Vestry do?”

  “They can demand we turn ye over for trial.”

  Dayn reined his horse to a halt. “Trial? For what?”

  Haskel stopped in response. “Demon craft. Taintin’ wells. Fire on the mountain. Take your pick.”

  “There are no demons, so how can I be one?” Dayn cried.

  “Of course there are demons. The Word tells us so.”

  “No uncle. I know the truth of it. I do.”

  “You’d best watch your words, boy. Blasphemy’ll not endear ye to the clans or the Vestry.”

  Dayn inched his horse to Haskel’s side. “I swear, it’s not blasphemy. Alicine and I went to the other side of the mountains, to a place called Tearia. There are people there. And they’re not demons.”

  Haskel’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing.

  “The Word says that pale-haired demons survived after the Purge,” Dayn continued, “and roamed the mountains as a message to us. But it was pale-haired people that roamed the mountains, not demons. They were Tearian guards, sent to keep the Kiradyns on their side of the mountain, even if it meant killing them. Before the Purge, Tearians and Kiradyns were friends, and visited back and forth, but when the mountain sent the fire, the Tearians blamed the Kiradyns, so they stopped them from crossing over.”

  “Enough,” Haskel warned. “To speak such things is to declare the Word a lie, and believe me, the punishment for that would be far greater than any penalty for bein’ a demon.” Haskel sounded angry, but not as angry as Gorman had been all those months ago when Dayn had suggested there could be others living on the island of Aredyrah. It gave Dayn hope that he could convince his uncle, but he knew he would need to approach it from a different angle.

  “Did Father tell you he found
me in the cave when I was a baby?” Dayn asked.

  Haskel’s lips compressed. He kicked his heels into his horse’s ribs, urging it onward. Dayn followed, keeping pace.

  “Did he?” Dayn persisted.

  “I was there when he found ye,” Haskel said stiffly.

  For a moment Dayn thought to rein his horse to a halt again, but if he stopped every time Haskel said something shocking, they might never reach home.

  “We were young then, and foolish,” Haskel continued. “Your father was desperate to save your mother. She’d lost so many infants that he feared she would either take her own life or die tryin’ to bear another one. He prayed—we all did. But Daghadar didn’t answer. Your father grew angry, and in a moment of desperation decided that if his own god wouldn’t help him, he would find one who would.”

  “What do you mean?” Dayn asked.

  Haskel shook his head. “Your father confided in me—god, I wish he hadn’t—that if Daghadar wouldn’t help him, he’d turn to the underworld to bargain for your mother’s life.

  “I tried to stop him, but that stubbornness of his. I followed him to the entrance of the cave, then confronted him and tried to reason with him. He would have nothin’ of it, so I did what I had to do. I followed him in.”

  “That’s what happened with me and Alicine,” Dayn said. “She found me and tried to get me to come home. When I wouldn’t, she went with me into the cave.”

  “She has your father’s stubbornness in her.”

  “And I don’t.”

  Haskel smiled sadly. “No, I s’pose not.”

  “So when he found me, what then?”

  “He took ye home to Morna and told her that Daghadar had given ye to ‘em as a gift for their devotion. O’ course, he’d not really thought through the fact that ye had demonic features. All he cared about was that for the first time in months your mother was happy. That was all he needed. He did worry for a time that the witch might come lookin’ for ye. He lost a good bit o’ sleep over it, I’ll tell ye that. He eventually headed back to the cave and hung chimes in front of it. He figured she wouldn’t trespass beyond ‘em.”

  “He hung those?” Dayn thought back on all the ragged chimes he and Alicine had seen draped around the entrance to the cave. Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined that it was his father who had placed them there.

  “Aye, he hung ‘em, and it must have worked, too. Never saw any more sign of the demon. At any rate, as ye grew older, he was determined to treat ye as his own. I honestly think he came to believe ye were. I warned him against takin’ ye to town and pretendin’ ye were anythin’ but what ye were.”

  “Is that why you never took Eyan to town?”

  “Aye.”

  “Did you find Eyan in a cave?”

  “Of course not!” Haskel sounded genuinely offended.

  “Then why do you think he is demon-kind.”

  “Because he is…he must be.”

  “How? You and Vania have always been faithful to each other I’m sure. How can Eyan be a demon?”

  “His blood is tainted by the ancient seed, o’ course.”

  “Ancient seed?”

  “Aye. Planted through the rapes of long ago.”

  “What?”

  “There are tales of it amongst the clans. Your father never told ye?” Haskel’s expression grew puzzled. Then he explained. “As ye know, we Aeries live in the high regions, those closest to the dwellin’ of the demons. Many generations ago, after the Purge, but before the demons were driven back into the mountains, they did despicable things. Since then, the taint of their deeds has been watered down, but a few children are born now and then with their features. Usually—” He stopped mid-sentence, as if realizing he had crossed into a subject he did not wish to discuss.

  “What happens to the children with those features, uncle?” Dayn asked.

  “Never ye mind. It’s none o’ your concern.”

  “Of course it’s my concern. I have those features, don’t I?”

  Haskel frowned. “Very well. The children are put to rest most times.”

  Dayn reined his horse to a halt. “They are killed?”

  Haskel stopped alongside him. “Most times, aye. But not always.”

  “You mean Eyan.”

  “I argued that he had to be weeded out, for the sake o’ the clan, but Vania refused to consider it.”

  “That’s what my mother did for me, too.”

  “What?” Haskel asked with confusion.

  “My real mother is Brina, and my father was Mahon. In Tearia, the people strive for purity, just like the clans are doing here.” Dayn pulled back his collar, revealing his birthmark. “This mark made me impure, so I was sentenced to die. Brina was a royal and had no choice. She told Mahon she would kill me herself, but instead she smuggled me to the mountains to ask the gods to cure me. When she met Fa—I mean Gorman—she thought he was a god. He made her think he was by saying he would cure me and return me to her in a year’s time.” Dayn paused. “But you know all that, don’t you.”

  Haskel nodded.

  Dayn felt resentment resurfacing. “So Gorman lied to her, and stole me, and never took me back like he promised. And while he was happy, and his wife was happy, I was miserable, and my real mother was even more miserable. What right did he have?”

  “Sounds to me like he saved your life.”

  “What?”

  “I said, it sounds to me like he saved your life. What would have happened to ye if Brina hadn’t turned ye over to him in the cave?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “I think ye do.”

  Dayn clenched his jaw, fighting the chink that Haskel had just put in his mettle. But before he could form a retort, Haskel said, “We’re home, boy. Best not say anythin’ about all this, at least not yet.”

  Dayn’s eyes shot forward, surprised to see the house just ahead. It had seemed to take an eternity to reach the springs when he’d stormed out earlier, but strangely, only moments to get back.

  As they drew nearer, he noticed a glow radiating through the foggy windowpanes. No doubt the family was waiting up for them. How in the world was he going to keep what he had learned tonight a secret? His mother would be easy to fool, and Vania and Eyan were Haskel’s problem, but Alicine? She could read him like parchment, and he knew the moment he entered the door, the events of the evening would be written all over his face. How could he keep from her the fact that he was even less welcome than he had originally anticipated, and that now, more than ever, he had to leave this place, and leave it for good.

  Back to ToC

  Chapter 7: Affairs of the Heart

  Haskel shoved open the door and ushered Dayn inside. Vania and Morna rose from their chairs by the hearth, while Eyan sat upright in his bed, blinking at the sudden commotion.

  “Good, we can go to bed now,” Alicine mumbled. She lifted her head from her arms that were resting, criss-crossed, atop the table.

  “Dayn—” Morna began, but Haskel silenced her with a wave of his hand. “Let the boy get some rest,” he said. “There’ll be time for talk later.”

  Morna pointed Dayn to a pallet that she had arranged for him near the fire. “Here son. You can settle yourself here.”

  “I’m not tired,” Dayn said.

  “I’ll heat ye some tea,” Vania said, hustling over to the kitchen counter. She lifted the lid from the tea kettle, then reached up and pulled a tiny vial from the shelf. “A little somethin’ extra to take off the chill,” she said with a wink. After adding a dash of its contents to the kettle, she hung it over the fire and motioned Dayn to a chair by the hearth. “There now, sit yourself down. You’re both half froze. Haskel…get those wet boots off your feet, and Dayn…yours, too.”

  Haskel yanked off his boots, then grabbed up Dayn’s, which were now in a wet heap by the fire, and took both pairs to the front porch.

  “Back in a mite,” Vania said as she turned to follow Haskel out the door. �
�Oh…Alicine, would ye watch the tea? And Morna, dear, ye look exhausted. Why don’t ye take yourself to bed? Dayn’s home now. We’ll hold off any talk ‘til ye get up.” She glanced at Dayn, then back at Morna. “The boy just needs some warmth in his belly. He’ll soon be ready for the pillow.”

  Morna nodded, but after the door clicked shut, she stepped to Dayn and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you're home, son,” she said softly. “We’ll talk later, all right?”

  Dayn did not respond. His eyes were focused on the flames in the hearth, but his mind was somewhere else entirely.

  Taking his cue of silence, Morna headed for her bed.

  Eyan slid off his mattress and shuffled slowly toward Dayn. His long hair was in a wild disarray, and his dressing gown was a rumpled mess. “Where’d ye go?” he asked. “I mean, if ye don’t mind me askin’.”

  “Nowhere,” Dayn muttered.

  “Well, ye can’t have gone nowhere, eh?” Eyan said. “Otherwise Father would’ve found ye standin’ outside the door.”

  Dayn turned to Eyan, expecting to see humor, but Eyan looked completely serious. “I went to the springs,” Dayn said, then returned his gaze to the hearth.

  “Why’d ye go there?” Eyan asked. Then his face grew concerned. “Are ye sick?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Let me get your tea then,” Eyan said. “Mother says it can cure any ill. I’ve been sick plenty o’ times and it always made me feel better.”

  Dayn sighed, then nodded. Eyan grabbed a towel and lifted the tea kettle off the spit. “Mother knows lots o’ things,” he said. “Like what herbs can cure a fever, or help ye sleep, or ease the aches.” Eyan poured the brew into a mug. “Here,” he said, holding it out to Dayn. “It’ll make ye feel better.”

  Dayn accepted the tea and drank it down. It hadn’t been over the fire long enough to get hot, but it sent a flood of warmth to his bones nonetheless.

  Eyan took the mug and refilled it. “Where do ye hurt? Is it your head?”

  Dayn forced a laugh. “My heart.”

  “Your heart? Hmmm…I don’t know anythin’ about that,” Eyan said quietly. “Father says I should avoid the affairs o’ the heart. I don’t know what that means though.”