His Ancient Heart

by M. R. Forbes

  Talon closed the box, returning it to the pack with reverence and care, and then unfurled the cloak and slipped it on. He couldn't ignore how the fates had aligned to bring him this far. He glanced at the soldier, wondering if there was something to Amman after all. "Let us make sure her kindness doesn't go to waste, Captain."

  "As you say, General."

  They started walking west along the Washfall, keeping to the bank and paying close attention for any hints of nearby soldiers. As Fehri had observed, the area around Varrow was still well patrolled, though it seemed as if the hanging of the murderer who looked like Silas Morningstar had imbued a sense of security among them. It was as if killing someone with a similar appearance meant that the real Liar must have been far off.

  It was a boon to them, and it allowed them to sneak past the random groups of soldiers, skirting their perimeters and continuing the journey west, pausing only to eat and relieve themselves. Fehri was in excellent physical condition, and he surprised Talon by matching him stride for stride, his breath never rising beyond an even tempo. He also surprised the General with the fact that he had already brought him much further west than Talon had expected, leaving them staring up at the false owl that marked the entrance to the hidden cave as night began to fall.

  "A lot of soldiers have passed through here," Fehri remarked, pointing at the horse trodden ground.

  It hadn't escaped Talon's attention, and his worry grew with each hoof print that moved in the same direction as they did. "I expect Caela would have heard if Eryn were found. Besides, the cave is well hidden. I would have passed it on my way back to Varrow if Wilem hadn't brought me to it."

  "Wilem?"

  "He is a Mediator. Was a Mediator. Eryn took his loyalty, along with his heart."

  "Another traitor?" Fehri asked with a smile.

  "That is a matter of perspective."

  They continued walking, away from the river and into the outcropping of rocks and trees, winding their way around and into the small niche that hid the cave beneath a large stone and a mass of roots.

  "Someone was here," Fehri said, pointing to the edge of one of the stones. It looked as though someone had wiped their boot on it.

  Talon fought to prevent his worry from turning to panic. He pushed the roots aside, leaning down into the small hole.

  "Wilem? Wilem, are you there, my boy?"

  Silence.

  "Wilem?"

  There was no answer. Talon looked back at Fehri. "Wait out here."

  "Yes, General," Fehri replied.

  Talon shrugged off the cloak. He placed it on the ground with the cure, and then stuck the knife between his teeth and slipped into the hole feet first. He pushed himself hard, sliding in and landing on the earthen floor with his legs bent, the weapon shifted from mouth to hand. His heart pounded as his eyes went straight back to the rear of the cave.

  He lowered the knife, breathing out heavily and feeling his body relax. Wilem was on the floor next to Eryn, her head on his chest. He stood and stared at them, watching the slight rise and fall of their chests, grateful that he had made it back in time.

  "Fehri," Talon said, leaning back into the hole.

  "Yes, General?"

  "Bring me the cure."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Eryn

  "Silas?"

  Eryn pushed herself into a sitting position, gasping for breath, her heart shaking beneath her breast. She blinked her eyes over and over, trying to adjust to the mix of darkness and light, to figure out where she was, and what was happening to her.

  "I'm here."

  She turned her head, finding someone kneeling beside her. She didn't recognize him right away, with a fuzz of hair on his scalp and face. She might not have known him at all if it hadn't been for the sharp cold of his deep-set blue eyes.

  "Silas." She leaned into him, throwing her arms wide and wrapping them around him. He caught her, pulling her in and holding her tight. She kept her eyes open, afraid to close them again, her gaze settling on the man sitting at the table behind them. She knew she had seen him before, but she wasn't quite sure where. He raised his hand to her in greeting. "Where is Wilem?"

  "Beside you," Wilem said.

  She had jumped into Talon's arms so fast that she didn't even notice him. She pulled herself away and turned to where he was kneeling, his eyes moist with tears. "There you are." She tried to reach him to hug him as well, but her strength left her, and she began to fall.

  "Lean back," Talon said, catching her and easing her down. "You don't have the strength yet."

  She let herself rest on her back, turning her head so she could see Talon. "I'm sorry," she said. "I had to. I couldn't let you die."

  "I understand, my dear. How much do you remember?"

  "Everything. Everything until I came out of the distortion field. After that..." She shivered and closed her eyes. "Pain. And hunger. Hunger for magic. To feed on it. To kill for it." She put her hand on her wrist, feeling the hardness of her skin. Her happiness at seeing Talon and Wilem fell to distress. "It isn't gone."

  "Not yet," Talon said. "We didn't have enough to reverse so much damage."

  "The refinery?"

  He shook his head.

  "Then where did you get the cure?"

  The man at the table stood and approached. "My Lady-" he began.

  Eryn stared at him for a moment, still trying to place him. "I know you," she said, interrupting him.

  "You've met before," Talon said. "In Varrow."

  "Yes. Yes. Now I remember you. You're the soldier outside the apothecary. Fehri."

  "You remember my name?" he said, surprised.

  "I remember you were kind, and that you follow Amman. It was more than I expected from any soldier. Someone like that is hard to forget." She put her attention back on Talon, noticing his shaved head for the first time. "What happened to your hair?"

  His expression was hard. "Gone, along with Silas Morningstar. This Empire needs General Talon Rast more than it knows."

  She reached up and ran her hand along the stubble on his scalp. "More than we realized," she said. "The cure... you used all of what Wilem had." She glanced back at Fehri, and then stared into Talon's eyes. "You went back to Varrow City?"

  "Yes. Do you remember when I told you that I knew the Overlord?"

  "You stole it from the palace?" She smiled. "I should have guessed."

  Talon hesitated before answering. "I didn't steal it. She gave it to me."

  "What?"

  "I brought Oz to her. To help prove his deception. We have an ally in the Overlord."

  The gasp escaped before she could stop it. "It has to be a trick."

  "It is no trick, my Lady," Fehri said. "You and the General have Amman on your side."

  "How could you know she would help you?" she asked.

  "I couldn't," Talon said. "There was no other way. I didn't save you from the Shifters to see you become one of them."

  "You could have been killed."

  He laughed. "I was killed. But I'm here now. We gave you two vials of the cure. It was enough to bring you back. The Curse is still in you, still poisoning you. The Overlord can get you more, and keep you well until I can find the refinery."

  "You mean to deliver me to the Overlord?" Eryn said.

  Talon nodded. "What better place for you to hide than right under his nose?"

  "Sila... Talon, no." She turned to Wilem. "Did you know about this?"

  "Eryn-" Wilem started to say.

  "No." She looked back at Talon. "No. I'm coming with you. You need my help."

  "Yes," Talon said. "I do need your help. Against him. How can you help me with that if I lose you? You're still sick, my dear. If you use your magic, you'll accelerate the Curse, and there is no more time to waste. We're being hunted by all of his Generals. By nearly all of his Empire. Fehri will take you back to Varrow. Caela, Overlord Prezi, will look after you there. As will Oz. They will keep you safe until I return with the location of the Refine
ry, and enough of the cure to keep you well."

  "Once the refinery has been discovered, we will work with the rebellion to take it," Fehri said. "If we can gain control of the Refinery, we will be able to treat the Cursed. What's more, if his Mediators use their Curse, they will begin to fall."

  "The first crack in his defenses," Talon said.

  Eryn was silent for a moment. So many thoughts were spinning through her head at once, and her fatigue was making them hard to sort.

  "What if they don't fall?" she asked. "What if they change?"

  "They'll only change if they've been exposed to the ebocite," Talon said. "The crystal is very rare, and I doubt Jeremiah will have allowed them anywhere near it."

  Jeremiah. Eryn's mind went back to the tower, to Talon's confrontation with him through the spinning stone. "There are five remaining," he had said. "And one of them is Spyne. They will be hunting you. All of them will be hunting you."

  "Who is he?" she asked. "You called him Jeremiah. Who is Spyne? And the five?"

  Each question caused Talon to flinch, as though she were hitting him with fists instead of words. She felt guilty for saying them, and at the same time she needed to know.

  Talon glanced over at Wilem, his face tight. He licked his lips, took two heavy breaths that seemed to last forever in the sudden tense silence.

  A tear fell from his eye.

  "I don't know who I am," he said at last.

  She was confused. "Of course you do. You're General Talon Rast."

  He gave her a weak smile. "Yes. I mean, I don't know who I am to you, and the truth of that frightens me more than any thoughts of the dangers that surround us." He took another heavy breath. "I love you."

  She felt her heart pounding, her emotions threatening to escape from her control. "I love you, too. Whatever you have to say, nothing will change that."

  "I'm a fool to be so afraid, I know. The great General." He laughed softly. "I'm not your grandfather. Aren wasn't my son. He couldn't have been, because I'm over a thousand years old."

  Eryn had been expecting something she might not like. Why else would he be so frightened to say it? That he wasn't related to her, that he was as old as the Empire itself... she could feel her eyes widen, her heart pound even harder. She began to feel dizzy, and she closed her eyes. "I don't understand."

  Talon told her everything that Rossum had said, and everything that he knew about Genesia and his past. He told her of the Nine, and of Jeremiah and the war against the Shifters. Wilem joined him in places, adding what he had seen and learned when they had gotten separated. He told her about Rossum's ebocite heart, the same ancient heart that was inside Talon and the Nine.

  She was tired, and at times it was hard for her to follow, but she fought to hear their every word. When they finished, Talon looked at her with a mixture of strength and fear.

  "You're afraid I'll judge you?" she asked, her voice feeling weak.

  "I'm not who you thought I was."

  She reached up, her arm heavy as lead. Talon took her hand in his. "Talon, you are much more than I thought you were. Blood and titles mean nothing. You have proven yourself beyond such things."

  He smiled at her then, a man whose confession has lifted a weight from his shoulders. "Thank you."

  "No, Grandfather. Thank you."

  She was going to close her eyes, to try to rest a while, but a single thought forced itself to the front of her mind. It was a thought she couldn't let go of.

  "Talon, if Aren wasn't your son, who was he?"

  Talon stared back at her. "I don't know." He paused, shaking his head as if it could loosen all of his memories.

  "Markus knew you. He called you Aren's father. Aren Rast."

  "There are no histories," Talon said. "No records of Talon Rast. If there are, Spyne and his Historians are sent to burn them. To destroy the evidence that all of his Generals have been walking this Empire for centuries. One generation who knows General Rast dies, and the next generation learns the name, and so it goes in an endless cycle."

  "He must have been something to you. Why else would you go through such trouble to avenge him? Why else would you have confronted Overlord Iolis? Even Feng thought you had a son."

  Talon considered it. Then he shook his head again. "I remember him. I remember raising him and his brother. I remember Alyssa. It's all so clear to me. Yet Rossum said it wasn't possible, that I can't sire children."

  "An orphan maybe?" Wilem said. "Perhaps you and your wife adopted him?"

  "I don't remember that."

  "That doesn't mean it didn't happen that way," Eryn said.

  "What about Alyssa?" Talon asked. "Did she know what I was? That I didn't age? Did she truly leave me, or was she taken before she could guess? Did she even exist at all?" The weight that had lifted returned to his shoulders, and Eryn saw his jaw clench from the pressure. "What if none of those memories are real? What if Jeremiah did something to Aren, to make him think he was my son? If he did, then why?"

  Eryn felt her heart fall. She had lifted his spirits with her acceptance and wounded him again with her curiosity. "I'm sorry."

  Everything in the room was still and heavy. Talon's eyes found hers. His chest heaved from a massive breath, and then he smiled again, a smile that carried so many emotions that it both pleased and scared her at the same time.

  "You have nothing to be sorry about, my dear. You are the one thing I am certain of, the one truth I can claim. The rest doesn't matter now. It won't bring Aren back. It won't bring Alyssa back. Even his answers have no importance, and when we find him... I won't wait to hear them before I stick my sword into his heart."

  It was the promise they had made. The promise that they shared. Even so, the words washed over her like ice, and her body began to shiver. Wilem noticed her reaction, and took a blanket near her feet and pulled it up over her shoulders.

  "All will be well, Eryn," Talon said, regaining himself. "Rest now. You need your strength to travel."

  Eryn closed her eyes. She took a breath in, feeling the exhaustion burn through her.

  I pity any man who crosses General Talon Rast at war.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Eryn

  "I'm going to miss you," Eryn said.

  She was sitting at the edge of the river with Wilem, her head resting in his lap. Two days had passed since they had given her the cure, and while some of the sickness remained, she felt as strong as she had since they'd entered the Dark.

  "I'll miss you too, of course," Wilem said. He looked down at her with big eyes, his hand absently stroking her hair. "I'd rather return to Varrow with you."

  "You can't," she said. "Talon needs you."

  She remembered that she had woken up some time earlier, realizing only then that the Mediator would not be returning to Varrow with her and Fehri. She had expended all of her energy to sit up, turning to find him still at her side, sitting up against the wall of the cave, his head lolled over to one side as he slept. Talon was there, too, sitting at the small table, wide awake. He looked over at her but didn't say anything, and she had settled back down and tried to relax. He needed a Mediator at his side, and Wilem was the only option. As much as she hated the thought of both of the men she loved being in danger, she hated the thought of watching either one go off alone even more.

  "I know. I feel like we've had so little time together to just be."

  "Just be what?" she asked. "There are others like us out there, and they're dying because of him. I could never relax, never enjoy you and me knowing that others were suffering, and we weren't doing anything about it."

  "I'm not saying you should. It would just be nice to have some time. That's all."

  Eryn rolled off him and sat up. "We have time right now, while Talon and Fehri destroy the cave. What do you want to do with it?"

  Wilem's face turned red, and he looked down at the grass. "I... uh..."

  She laughed and leaned in, putting her face in his. "Well? Spit it out. I thought y
ou were over being tongue-tied with me?" He had been so awkward when they had first met at Waverly's. His shyness had been both frustrating and endearing.

  His eyes met hers. "I want to marry you."

  She froze in place, feeling her heart jump. "What?"

  "If we had time. If we could. I'd want to marry you."

  "That's no way to ask for a lady's hand," Eryn said, overcoming the initial shock. "Even in my village, you had to offer a token."

  He smiled. "I don't have anything."

  "You have your smile."

  "That's not anything."

  She put her hand against his cheek. "Maybe not to you. It's of great value to me."

  He smiled wider, warming to the game. "Then you can have it."

  "I want more."

  He laughed at that. "What else can I give you, Eryn? My heart? It's already yours."

  "I want you to ask me like any respectable suitor would. And, you'll need to ask Talon for permission."

  She replaced his laughing with her own at that.

  Wilem's face paled.

  "You want me to ask Talon if I can marry you?"

  "It is customary for the suitor to ask his lady's father for their hand. Talon is the closest thing that remains, so yes." She pointed back towards the cave. "You can find him over there."

  He looked back at where she was pointing. "Eryn.... I..."

  She rolled her eyes. "I hope you wouldn't be so unsure if you were ready to wed me for real."

  He got to his feet. "I am ready to wed you for real."

  He turned to walk towards the cave, but she reached out and took his hand, pulling him back to her.

  "Not yet," she said. "Not until this is over. Not until you are safe."

  "Not until you are safe," he said.

  "We can pretend in the meantime," Eryn said. "Consider it a promise. If one day you ask me like a proper suitor, I promise I'll say yes."

  His face turned red again, still wearing the smile she treasured. "How do we pretend?"

  "Do you take me to be your wife?" she asked, taking his hands in hers.

  "Yes. Do you take me as your husband?"

  She nodded. "I do. I love you."