The woman’s tangled brown hair fell forward over her damaged face as she wailed, the frantic cries of a stricken animal. Stunned, Avalar lowered her sword. She whirled toward Ponu, pleading for his guidance and counsel. She held in her grasp a creature both desperate and dying. And I am a giant, born to defend and not to kill!
Against her will, the desire rose to protect, to render aid and give comfort—yearnings completely at odds with her heated blood, her body primed for battle.
Throwing back her head, Avalar howled.
Ponu sprang to her side. “Giant, what will you do?”
She stared at the ghost. The furrows by Argus’s mouth emphasized his haggard expression. It was as if by suffering the torments from newer deaths, he was being forced to relive his own final pain. His fist clenched over the phantom belt at his waist, yearning for a blade he could never wield.
“I know not!” She shivered as Ponu’s touch cooled her body’s fire. “Oh, Ponu! Hear her!”
“Hush.” Ponu extricated her sword from her clasp and placed it next to her. Gently he cradled the human, stroking the black-robe’s forehead as he laid her on the snow.
“Burned,” said Ponu grimly, holding his palm flat above the woman’s blistered legs. He slipped his hand up her sleeve. “Broken. Arm, wrist, and fingers . . . She bleeds in her stomach. Her lung . . . her organs fail her. Her eye . . .” Ponu flinched as he reached her chest.
“Giant, this trial was never meant for you,” he said. “Camron Florne was Terrek’s brother. It is he who must decide this woman’s fate.”
With a soft sigh, Avalar bent to retrieve her sword. She winced when her hand brushed the snow, sensing the mountain’s grief below its wintry mantle. If this slaver must perish, she thought, let it not be here!
Stiffly she stood, her gaze drifting once more to the pitted, dead landscape of Warder’s Fall beneath the purple dawn.
Ponu lifted the woman. Nodding slowly, Avalar stepped to grip his winged shoulder, and as he raised his staff, she smiled through her tears at the sight of a distant bird.
Chapter 43
FELRINA WRITHED, RESISTING the strength of the winged creature holding her still. Unfamiliar currents buffeted her, an ancient wisdom beyond old magic or new. The elf’s staff mastered the tempest, and bore her and the giant through the present, across the past and possible futures.
She sensed the flex of the time crystal’s power, how it established the destination the elf-mage visualized and took him there. She glimpsed a flash, and then he was striding among the trees.
Snow-clad branches swiped at her arms. Ahead she spotted the giant’s furry cloak, the big warrior’s heavy blond braid swaying back and forth.
Felrina pressed her cheek to the elf’s chest. Soon Terrek would know it was she who had killed his brother, and then it would be as it had been with the giant. She would see loathing on his face and desire for her blood.
This is fitting, she decided, quelling her whimpers as she closed her eyes. Terrek warned me from the start this could happen, and what did I do? Everything he predicted and worse!
Her captor quickened his pace as the trees thinned out, the wind pulling at her mud-caked hair. From a distance, a voice yelled: “Avalar!”
“I will do what I can,” the winged elf murmured over her head. “You have suffered enough. But I regret I cannot promise you anything.”
The giant shouted, breaking into a run. The mage followed at a walk, as if he, like Felrina, dreaded the coming ordeal. She breathed in his spicy elven scent, at once familiar and alien.
Warder’s magic permeated his bones, she realized, stronger even than Erebos’s presence within her own. Somehow, he kept it shielded from the world, surrounded by the same foreign power she had felt in his staff.
A fire crackled somewhere close. Frozen twigs snagged her robe, threatening to tear the fabric. Then warm bodies closed in around her.
Felrina listened with all her might, both waiting for and dreading the voice of the one she knew.
Softly the giant spoke.
“Camron’s killer?” Terrek’s response cut like a whip across the sudden silence. “This?”
Felrina forced her eye open. Still the elf held her, offering what protection he could. Reluctantly he placed her beside the blaze, surrendering her with a sigh into the hands of human justice. Felrina savored the fire’s heat caressing her cheek, taking in the homey sight of the frying pan by the flames, its crisped grillcakes going cold.
A young man, his face pale and drawn, studied her through the smoke. Despite her crippled vision, she knew him, recognizing his features from the hours she had fretted over the waters of Arawn’s pool.
“Avalar, are you sure?” Terrek asked.
Steel hissed as the giant drew her sword. “Yes,” she rumbled. “The ghost came to me in the night. He urged me to follow him, for he had found Camron’s killer. This woman . . . I beg your pardon, my leader, but I was compelled for Camron’s sake. I had to strike a blow. I did not know she was injured.”
Felrina held her breath. The young giant’s conflicted passions had spared her life on Mount Chesna’s slopes. Perhaps they might aid her now.
The sharp heel of a boot pressed her jaw. Felrina groaned as Terrek rolled her head, exposing her ruined right eye. He crouched, tugging back her soiled hair.
“She’s a black-robe,” he observed. “This makes no sense. Why wouldn’t Erebos defend her? Who would do this?”
“I care not,” Avalar said. “She took Camron’s life, and her victims are many. Their souls cry for her blood!”
Felrina gasped at a touch on her belly, slipping cool and soothing beneath her tunic’s folds. An older man stood over her, wincing as his gentle fingers found her wounds.
The man sat back to snatch a breath. “She’s badly hurt,” he said. “Someone has . . .”
“Leader Florne,” the elf interjected. “Her life or death is up to you now. Decide quickly, please. I cannot bear this woman’s pain.”
With an effort, Felrina turned her head, struggling to catch sight of the person she loved. “Terrek?”
He was on her in an instant, seizing her tunic and robes and dragging her up. “How is it you know my name?” he demanded. “Do you know what you’ve done? What you’ve taken from me?”
“Y-yes,” she sobbed. “Oh, Terrek, I’m sorry!”
Stunned, he mouthed her name. Then his grip lost its strength, and she struck the icy ground by the fire.
Felrina screamed as she landed on the shards of her fingers. Sobbing, she flipped onto her side, pressing her shattered hands to her stomach.
Terrek stood above her, his hazel eyes filling with tears. A howl ripped from his throat as he savagely hacked with his sword at a log beside him.
“Commander, let me!” a younger warrior pleaded. “I want—”
“Terrek Florne,” the elf-mage said. “You must decide!”
“Camron loved her!” Terrek shouted. “He loved her all his life! That’s how he was and how he loved! And she murdered him!”
Across the flames, Felrina saw the haggard man regarding her in silence. He was Gaelin Lavahl, she knew, the Skystone’s wielder, but there was more to him, something ancient, a power in him she knew. He was Holram, her foe, no longer lodged in a staff, but in living human flesh.
He stood as if he mistook her fear for an invitation. Glistening with sweat, he stumbled toward her.
Hard hands seized her arms. Bright steel flashed as her captor swung his sword. It was Terrek, Felrina realized. At least it’s a friend who ends my life!
“Camron loved her,” the mage said. “What would he want?”
“I want it!” Terrek snapped. “My brother isn’t here to tell me what he wants, and whose fault is that?” He shoved his knee into the small of her back and thrust her forward, grinding her bloody chest against the log. “She killed my brother!”
“Erebos deceived her,” countered the elf. “He manipulated her mind; that is what he does, Te
rrek Florne, and then his cult takes care of the rest. He interfered with her. You have no idea what warder’s fire can do.”
Felrina blinked painfully as she struggled to focus. The winged elf stood with his back to her, steam pouring from his wings and shoulders. Power coiled in him from a god above the sky, a being who perceived the world through him. Pressure climbed in her throat as the remnant of Erebos within her pulled back and thrashed in fear.
“There are punishments worse than death,” Ponu said. “And I suspect she has experienced every one. Think on that, Leader Florne! If you slay her now in the heat of your rage, it will be you in the end who suffers the most. She will be gone and free of her pain when tomorrow you must judge yourself. Or is this how Kideren treats its prisoners? Did your Enforcers make it their practice to slay people on sight? Were not the Seeker elves clear on this? They alone are to judge violent criminals.”
Terrek growled. “The Enforcers of Kideren are all dead! Murdered by the thing she serves! As for the Seekers, her cult rejects their rules, doesn’t it?”
“The warder who enslaved her must destroy in order to live,” the winged mage said. “He has to deceive the ignorant to get what he wants. I suspect she rebelled. It might behoove you to discover why before you take her life.”
Felrina groaned, longing for Terrek’s rusty blade to fall.
She flinched as his boot released her. With a sweep of his leg, he stretched her flat.
“Fine, Ponu,” Terrek gritted. “I’ll do as you ask and wait until I’m calm and reasonable. And then I will slay her myself!”
He scowled down at her. “There are no judges anymore. I’m what you get, and it’s a Hades’s shade more than you deserve!”
Felrina stiffened when Gaelin Lavahl knelt next to her. “No!” she gasped. She cringed as he drew her onto his lap, cradling her head.
“It is not a kindness to heal you,” Holram’s strange, flat voice intoned from his mouth. “Not when your future is so uncertain, but one of my kind did this to you. Darkness cannot dwell where light exists. Whenever a candle is lifted in defiance, always there will be shadows to fight against it. You are that candle, Felrina Vlyn.”
She whimpered, flinching at his touch. He was a warder, a maker of stars, caressing her hair. He was Holram, no longer vanquished in the staff but freed by the one Mens had once considered a weakling.
She clung to him as she had always yearned to embrace her god. Unlike the cold granite of Erebos’s bones, Holram’s mortal flesh yielded. Vulnerable now, and human, he accepted her aching need to be held, his borrowed fingers stroking her face.
Power rose from within him, his spirit fully entwined with Gaelin Lavahl, drawing from the staff left abandoned by the fire, the Skystone that was no longer his prison.
Pain like a thousand needles stabbed through her flesh, mending her burned limbs and knitting her bones. His healing lanced through her body, cleansing, straightening, and restoring what was lost.
Felrina drew a deep breath, marveling that she could do so, but still she hugged the healer’s neck. Some hurts still pained her, and she knew they always would. Curled with her knees to her chest on the warder’s lap, she lay grieving for the woman she had been.
Terrek stood above her, breathing hard. “Avalar,” he said. As the giant stepped near, he gestured down. “Take her out of my sight. If she tries anything, just . . . kill her. Understood?”
Avalar sheathed her great sword and bent. Felrina flinched, gasping as the giant seized her upper arm. Before she could blink, she was torn from the healer’s embrace. “Sails,” the giant swore, hauling her onto her feet. “Will you walk?”
Felrina struggled to obey, to coax her legs into motion, half dangling from the giant’s angry grasp. “My shoulder!” she cried. “Please . . . stop!”
“Then walk!” Avalar snarled.
The giant yanked her to a halt in front of the largest of three tents. “Please!” Felrina begged, struggling to loosen the powerful grip. “You’re hurting me!”
Avalar tore open the door’s flap. Felrina staggered as the giant released her. “You hurt my friends,” Avalar spat. “First you kill Camron, the gentlest spirit I have ever met, and now you wound him more through his brother! Inside!”
Felrina sprawled on the softness of a bed. At once she thrashed away from it and into a corner, curling into a ball.
“Gaelin was already ill,” Avalar said behind her. “Now . . .”
Slowly Felrina unclenched. The smell of mildew from the tent, the soft feel of the furs beneath her, and the comfortable crackle of the fire unraveled what strength she had left. Exhausted, she let go, slumping along the shelter’s taut wall, her long legs unfolding. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Tentatively she lifted her hand, probing the new bruises the giant had left on her skin.
“Are you injured?” asked Avalar.
Felrina nodded. Shuddering as the pressure broke in her heart, she hid her face in her arms and sobbed.
Activity picked up beyond the tent. Contented munching sounds filled the little clearing, the grunts and bugles of creatures she did not know.
Avalar waited, stern as a judge. After a time there came a rustling at the door. “Get her ready,” the older man said. “We’re heading out.”
Felrina snatched a shaky breath and held it. The man’s gentle voice soothed her in the same way her father often had. It gave her hope where she thought she had none.
“Felrina Vlyn,” said the giant. “These leggings are for you. Will you rise?”
Sniffling, Felrina dragged herself to her knees and pushed back her hair.
“You have suffered,” Avalar said. “Like Ponu the mage, I do not relish the sight. Yet now I must know why. For the sake of my heart, and the friendship I shared with the one you so coldly dispatched, I must comprehend. Why would this power you serve turn on you?”
The tent’s walls closed in on her, the space within them going airless and chill. “I stopped believing his promises,” she said. “When he k-killed my father, I . . . and after that he—”
“Ah. That explains much,” Avalar said. “The death of others is desirable. In the name of your beliefs, you would gladly torture and slay. But when it is your father . . .”
“No!” Felrina sat trembling. Any delusions she once had were gone. I know what I am, she thought. And what I was. “Yes.” Her voice was a whisper as she cringed at what she saw within herself. “I’m a monster. I wish he had k-killed me.”
“He may,” Avalar said. She fell silent, the shadows beyond the shelter moving back and forth. Wood clicked as the two other tents were being dismantled. There came a sudden hiss of steam from the little fire, and through the canvas, Felrina caught the stench of the drenched wood.
“You c-could have saved him the trouble,” she stammered, her face suddenly hot. “B-back on the mountain when you had the chance.”
Avalar abandoned her place on the mat, setting a pile of folded black fabric and leather where Felrina could reach it. “Put these on,” she said. Scooping up her blankets and furs, the giant shoved them into her pack. Then she knelt, rolling her mat and tying it with laces to her bundle of gear. “Come now.” She frowned. “You cannot travel in this cold with your legs exposed, Felrina Vlyn, and if you continue ignoring my instructions, you only give my leader more reasons to slay you. Do you understand?”
Felrina seized the leggings and lurched to her feet, drawing them on and then wriggling into a second pair.
As the giant reached for her, Felrina recoiled. “No, I’ll go with you! Just please don’t hurt me!”
Avalar nodded. “Very well.” She punched the door’s flap open, smacking it with her fist.
Felrina went first, stepping out through the narrow doorway. She stiffened when Avalar clasped her from behind—her uninjured arm this time. With a groan, Felrina straightened her back, blinking at the glare of the sky.
Chapter 44
FELRINA DUCKED AS the overhang of branches, glistening bright un
der the sun, dripped water on her head. Her thoughts wandered, her gurgling belly making it difficult for her to track the little camp’s activity. The two men clad in similar black armor were loading the tents and gear, while the young warrior in his tall stovepipe hat sat by the remains of the fire picking with his knife at the last fragments of meat from a diradil’s bones.
She saw Captain Vyergin seated next to the boy, pushing with his spoon at something he held in a bowl on his lap. When the utensil jerked up abruptly, she spied a flattened lump beneath it—the leftover griddle cakes he had folded together with the meat.
Felrina studied the warrior with the knife, his eyes intense below his odd tippy hat. She recalled him wanting, even more than Terrek, to see her dead. He’ll kill me if he gets the chance, she realized. As long as he’s here, I’m not safe.
Does it matter? No, because soon I’ll be dead. She visualized her demise, the man she loved slitting her throat or hanging her from a tree. She imagined Terrek laughing with Erebos’s voice.
Sighing, Felrina settled her gaze on a third figure close to where the fire had been, the young man who carried Holram in his flesh. Gaelin dozed with his chin on his chest, his hands limp over the staff across his knees. For some inexplicable reason, she yearned to embrace him, to hold him to her heart, and never let go.
“He was already ill,” Avalar remarked beside her. “He was forced to heal Vyergin after your cult made the captain a dach. I know not where he gained strength enough to succor you.”
Felrina, her lip between her teeth, hung her head. She flinched when the giant, reaching out, dropped a cloth-wrapped parcel into her pocket. “Vyergin makes these for when we get hungry on the trail,” Avalar explained. “He urges you to eat one ere we go, for it is clear to him you have not taken food for several days.”
“You shouldn’t feed a corpse,” Felrina muttered.
“We who are not in your cult,” the giant retorted, “despise suffering. We gain neither pleasure nor strength from it. You killed my friend and my leader’s brother, yet no one here wishes more hardship for you. Not even Leader Terrek, who has yet to decide your fate.”
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