“How are you feeling?” Enyo’s voice whispered over me. She was sitting at my bedside, holding a cup of steaming hot tea and doing an excellent job of looking worried.
All my hopes came crashing down around my ears.
“You passed out. Jaevid checked you over but said you probably just used too much power too quickly. He said you might have a headache when you woke up.”
I muttered a few of my favorite gray elf curses under my breath. “Where is he now?”
“He went up to the roof a few hours ago.”
I arched an eyebrow. “What’s he doing up there?” If he was messing up my perfectly-organized herb garden with his forest powers, there would be blood.
“Chatting with a deity, I imagine.” She flashed a nervous smile. “He asked to see Princess Hecate. It was so strange. The king and queen left right away.” Enyo sighed shakily, looking down into the cup of tea. “Reigh, you—”
I cut her off. “I was going to tell you. About my family. Everything just got so messed up. I don’t even know if it’s true or not.”
She hesitated, nibbling on her bottom lip. “It’s all right. I understand. I can’t imagine what all this is like for you.”
“A scorching abyss comes to mind,” I rasped as I tried massaging my throbbing temples. It didn’t help. “I guess the fact that I’m still here means the king and queen don’t intend on putting me to death for the whole ‘being chosen by an evil goddess’ thing.”
Enyo shifted in her seat, clearing her throat and still nibbling on her lip. Then she stood and carefully placed the warm clay cup into my hands. When I moved to take it, she put her hands over mine and squeezed lightly. Her palms felt clammy and sticky, and I could see her brow crinkling with uncertainty.
“I think you need to go to Maldobar with Jaevid,” she said at last.
Those words sent a jolt through me.
She squeezed my hands harder. “Jaevid is the only one who can help you with Noh and Clysiros. He can follow you to places no one else can. He can stop you from going too far.”
“I have duties here as well. I can’t just abandon the clinic. This place was Kiran’s legacy. This was his life’s work. It’s the only thing left of him now.”
“I will look after it for you,” she argued. “I know I’m not fully trained yet, but surely the royal palace would be willing to spare a senior medic to help me until you get back.”
I didn’t like it one bit—the idea of turning my back on this place again. This clinic was all I had left in the world. These walls were the only place I truly felt safe. Not to mention the fact that I’d be leaving Enyo again, too. I couldn’t. Not now that we’d finally, you know, cleared the air.
“Please, Reigh. Don’t be stubborn. Not about this.”
“And if I die in combat? You’ll be all right with that?”
She scowled. “Of course not. But I’m not okay with you living like this, either. Always looking over your shoulder. Being afraid of your own shadow. This is no way to live. I want more for you. I want you to be happy.” Her eyes watered, and she looked away. “I want us to be happy.”
Us—she’d said that word with such emphasis. It made my stupid heart start to pound again and I stretched out a hand to touch her chin, gently guiding her gaze back to meet mine. “What are you saying? That you’d want to hang around with me forever?”
“Hmm. Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I don’t have any other plans. I might as well stick around to look after you. I’m the only one qualified, anyway.”
“I don’t deserve you,” I murmured.
The corners of her mouth quirked into a breathtaking smile that made my thoughts tangle up like cobwebs. She blew my mind like other people blew dandelion puffs. “No one does, according to my mother. But if you defeat the Tibrans and save Maldobar, she’ll be forced to reconsider it.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” I laughed, letting my eyes fall closed as she leaned in to touch her lips softly against mine. Warm, soft, inviting—kissing her was a taste of pure sunlight.
Brave the jungle roads back to Maldobar, somehow make it to Northwatch, break into it and battle past a few thousand angry Tibran soldiers, rescue Aubren and Jenna, and make it back to … well, somewhere safe. That was it. That’s as much of a plan as I could come up with as I crammed every sword, weapon, and dangerous pointy object I could find into my travel bag. How, by all the gods, we were going to pull this off, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. But based on all the stories I’d heard over the years about Jaevid—if you were going to do something insanely dangerous and potentially epic, he was the one you wanted on your side.
Enyo took over packing the medicinal supplies and food rations while I went up to fetch our resident war-ender. If Aubren and Jenna really did need my help, it was best not to waste any more time, right?
I found Jaevid sitting on the edge of the roof. His head was thrown back, his eyes closed and a blissful smile on his face while his legs dangled over the drop. He wasn’t alone. Around him perched a whole flock of exotic, brightly-colored birds. Finches and sparrows were fluttering all around him, and a large parrot was perched on his shoulder, nibbling playfully at his pointed ear. There was even a thalcrowe, one of Luntharda’s most notorious birds of prey, sitting nonchalantly at his side with talons like razors. The sight of that feathery, thirty-pound monster stopped me dead in my tracks.
“It’s all right,” Jaevid said, his eyes opening to stare back at me with a strange grin.
“So you say,” I muttered as I hedged a little closer. “I’ve seen thalcrowes snatch baby faundra right off the jungle floor. Just—bam—gone.”
Jaevid chuckled. “Not much of an animal lover, are you?”
“Not when it comes to the ones that could claw my face off, no.” I sat down on the other side of him so that Jaevid was between the thalcrowe and me.
“Dragons would fall into that category, I guess.” There was a suggestive edge to his tone. “Vexi might do just that when you see her again. She’s not happy with you. I’m not sure I’ll be able to talk her down.”
I flushed until even my neck felt hot. “H-How do you know about her?”
Jaevid laughed again. “Well, it’s kind of a long story. After I talked with Paligno last night, a few other things happened. I can hear Mavrik again. He’s been reminding me of some of our adventures.”
“Mavrik? As in … your mount? The dragon you rode in the Gray War?” I swallowed hard. I remembered vividly my last encounter with him after he and a pack of wild dragons had rescued us from the Tibrans. Mavrik was an impressive beast, to put it lightly. He was a king drake now, far bigger and stronger than any other wild dragon.
“More like a friend, really.” Jaevid shrugged. “I can communicate with him much like I can with Paligno, although it doesn’t tire me out nearly as much.”
I snorted. “Yeah, chatting with a deity always wears me out, too.”
Jaevid just grinned. “It will. You’ll see.”
“What does he have to do with Vexi? Did she go back to the wild dragons or something?” Part of me hoped she had. That was her home. And since I had no plans of becoming a dragonrider, it was the best place for her.
“More or less,” he answered. “She’s one of his favorite hatchlings, so he looks after her. Spoils her a little, I think. I was able to talk to her some, although her presence is harder for me to channel.”
“Wait—are you saying Vexi is Mavrik’s daughter?”
His grin widened. “Lucky you. I suppose that practically makes us family.”
I sighed. “No offense, but I’m not exactly cut out for the whole dragonrider thing.”
“Neither was I in the beginning.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t accidentally kill people when you lost your temper.”
Jaevid’s eyes darkened some and his jaw tensed a little. “I did once. And I came close to it several other times.” He met my gaze with a half
-hearted shrug. “Or so Mavrik tells me, anyway.”
I had to scrape my jaw up off the floor. Jaevid had killed somebody by lashing out and losing control over his powers? No one, not even Kiran, had ever told me that story before.
For the first time, I felt a little less monstrous.
“Hey, uh, I wanted to say sorry for losing it before.” My voice cracked a little under the crushing embarrassment. “The last time I went to Maldobar, everything went wrong. I screwed up. I did something … terrible.”
“I know,” he answered quietly. “Vexi showed me.”
“And you still think it’s a good idea for me to go back?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. You’re supposed to be there. That’s what destiny has chosen for us. We are supposed to fight this together, and I’m willing to trust that and you.” His pale blue eyes studied me as though trying to read my mind. “But for what it’s worth, I think this is your chance at redemption. I’d like to see you take it. So, do you think you can trust me?”
I had to think about that. The Jaevid I was getting to know now was nothing like the one in all the legends and stories I’d been told. Maldobar really needed that regal, victorious hero depicted in all their sculptures and tapestries if they were going to survive—but the guy sitting next to me was a far cry from those images. I just hadn’t decided yet if that was a good or bad thing.
“Well, the way I see it, you’ve got the royals and citizens from two different kingdoms trusting in you to save their butts. That’s pretty compelling.” I rubbed the short, scratchy stubble on my chin. “And Enyo trusts you. She’s a much better judge of character than I am, so that’s two strikes in your favor.”
“Sounds like I’m scoring well.” The thin scar that sliced over his left brow, eye, and down to his cheek crinkled when he smirked.
“Just promise me one thing. If this goes badly, if I lose it and you can’t make me stop—you have to end it before I do something like that ever again. I won’t be the villain in this story. I don’t want that to be my legacy. Not because of me, you know, but for Kiran and Enyo’s sake. I don’t want to smear either of their names by association.”
Jaevid’s smirk faded. We stared at one another, me studying his strange mixed features. It was easy for me to pick out which parts of him were gray elf and which were human. Other parts, however, were caught somewhere in the middle. His ears, for example, were pointed, but much shorter than a full-blooded elf. His shaggy hair was a shade somewhere between black and the traditional gray elf silver. Its color reminded me of ash or soot.
“You have my word,” he replied at last.
I nodded. At least that was settled.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, the birds still pecking and fluttering around Jaevid. It was getting late in the day. We only had a few hours left before sunset.
I cleared my throat. “What’s the plan, then?”
“Jace and Araxie agreed to let me speak to Hecate. Then we leave.”
“Right. And, uh, what’s talking to her going to do?”
Jaevid’s gaze panned over the city spread out before us, his pale blue eyes catching in the filtered light from the canopy. “We’re going to need her before it’s over. She’s the mediator. She can channel the voices of the divine. It’s the only way to talk to your goddess.”
I nodded like I had some clue as to what that meant. “Okay. Well she did mention she hears voices.”
“I have to teach her how to focus it. Paligno gave me instructions. It won’t be easy—and I doubt Jace will approve. But we don’t have a choice. By the time we finish your ritual, my hope is that she will have practiced enough to be able help us with a meeting.”
“A meeting?”
“Something has to change. First Hovrid and now Argonox. There was another who came before, centuries ago, who called himself the God Bane. They all wanted the same thing—to seize the power of the gods. They all spread slaughter and mayhem, leaving a path of destruction behind them.” Jaevid rubbed at his lip, which was still a little battered from Enyo’s punch. “If there’s ever going to be lasting peace, then all divine power has to be put out of reach of mortal hands.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“Not exactly,” he murmured. “The gods require some sort of manifestation upon the earth for them to effectively maintain power here. Like it or not, we need that power. Paligno brings life. His very essence kindles the fires of creation, healing, and the birth of new things. Clysiros brings death and decay, and while that might frighten most people, they are necessary. You need both to maintain a cycle of balance.”
I blinked. “I, uh, didn’t expect you to take the ‘death isn’t evil’ stance.”
Jaevid shrugged. “Nothing is meant to live forever.”
“Does Clysiros have a stone? You know, like Paligno did? Like the one you destroyed?”
He nodded slightly. “It’s not a stone, per se, but it’s essentially the same thing. We’ll need it to complete your ritual. The rules that govern Clysiros are different from those that Paligno had to follow for me to manifest his power. It’s going to be complicated.”
Somehow, the way he said that made me think he was up to something. Maybe it was his tone, or the way he refused to meet my eyes as he spoke. Regardless, something was off. Jaevid wasn’t telling me everything.
“We’ll have to come up with a different solution for the gods’ presences here,” he went on. “But until then, there are other things to work out.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Like the fact that Northwatch is currently crawling with Tibran soldiers.”
“Mavrik has been briefing me on the situation. He’s watched their progression since they first landed, anticipating my return.” Jaevid rubbed the back of his neck. “Aubren and Jenna are being held in the tower, which unfortunately was built entirely around the idea of keeping unwanted people out. Even with dragons to help us, we would be hard pressed to get inside. They’ve already sealed all but one of the landing platforms dragonriders used to use to get in and out of the tower. If we did manage to get in, we might be cornered there if they close off all the remaining exits.”
“Well, that … sucks.”
“No kidding. And then, of course, there are the war machines and the possibility that Tibran scouts might tip Argonox off to our approach. According to Mavrik, the entire northern region is crawling with their spies. They’ll be watching for us.”
“Okay, that really sucks.”
Jaevid laughed again. “On the plus side, we have a double dose of divine power at our disposal.”
“There is that.” I chuckled and arched an eyebrow at him. “So? Any bright ideas?”
His icy-hued eyes glittered with wild energy, looking eerily similar to those of the thalcrowe perched at his side. “Just one.”
FIFTEEN
By nightfall we were ready to go. All our bags were packed. Our swords and knives were sharpened, and our quivers stocked with arrows. We had everything we needed—except maybe any hope of success. Seriously, how were the two of us supposed to break into Northwatch like that? It was insanity.
But, hey, doing insane and potentially lethal things was becoming a trend in my life. Why stop now?
Sitting around the fire pit again, Jaevid, Enyo, and I ate our last meal together without saying a word. Enyo sat closer to me than usual, her brow creased with worry. My hands were unsteady, and I didn’t want her to see it. I had to at least appear confident—for her sake and my sanity.
Jaevid, on the other hand, was the picture of thoughtful calm. The warm light from the crackling embers made hues of gold and red dance across his pale blue eyes while he ate. His brow was locked into a pensive frown, as though mentally he was a thousand miles away. I wondered which god or dragon he was talking to this time.
A knock on the door interrupted the silence. No one moved. Then Jaevid lifted his gaze to meet mine from across the hearth. He nodded slowly.<
br />
I took a deep breath and got to my feet.
King Jace and Queen Araxie were on my doorstep again. Neither one smiled when they saw me. No surprise there. After all, the last time we’d been together, they had seen me lose control of Noh and found out I was the chosen one of the goddess of death. I had no new assurance to offer them that it wouldn’t happen again, even with Jaevid there. I was a disaster waiting to happen, and now they knew it, too.
Hecate stood between her grandparents, her lovely face pale and her visionless eyes darting rapidly in the direction of every sound. Her chest rose and fell with frantic, shallow breaths. I wondered what she was hearing that made her so scared. Paligno? Clysiros? Noh? Or something worse?
“We need to hurry.” Jaevid’s voice nearly made me jump out of my skin. He was standing right behind me in the doorway, looking at them over my shoulder. For a guy well over six feet, he could move as quiet as a cat.
Queen Araxie’s mouth hardened, but she didn’t speak. She led the way inside with her husband right on her heels. They kept Hecate close between them, as though trying to shield her from something. Probably me. I tried not to take that personally.
Enyo snapped to her feet, visibly flustered at the appearance of the royal family returning to my living room. I had to remind myself this was still a new experience for her. I was getting used to nobles, royals, and all manner of famous faces hanging around at my house. Maybe Argonox would come knocking next and save us the trouble of hunting him down. A guy can dream, right?
“I apologize for the rush, but there isn’t time to explain everything.” Jaevid said, offering our guests a thin smile before he faced Hecate. She stiffened as he took slow steps toward her, as though she could somehow sense his presence drawing closer. “But we cannot do this without you, Hecate. Your gift is the key. Will you help us?”
“Gift?” Queen Araxie’s voice broke, her expression riddled with pain. “How can you call it that? Do you have any idea what it has cost our family? My granddaughters snuffed out like candles in the wind, one by one, and no healer could do anything to help them. Now Hecate hears the voices, too. She grows weaker every day. This is not a gift—it is a curse!”
Harbinger Page 12
