The Wolf's Mate: A Tale of the Holtlands, Book 2

by R. F. Long

  “The Vision Rock has a way of changing people, no matter who they are. Worse, if they do not respect it. Coming here by himself, without due care and preparation, drove your brother so deeply into insanity that he could no longer function among us and I was forced to send him away. When I did, his retaliation was…”

  They knew he was mad? Of course they did. He slaughtered Fa’linar. And they still sent him back. Gods, they still sent him back to his home without a word of warning.

  Jeren sucked in a breath and Ariah’s voice fell still for a moment. Tears welled in her eyes, glittering with the first light of the growing dawn, and the outrage that had been welling inside Jeren bled away. Ariah still grieved.

  “I am sorry, Jeren. You should prepare yourself. The Vision Rock reaches deep inside each of us and sometimes pulls out those things which are better left hidden. You should think over what you are, and what you want, your needs and desires. The things that make you human. You should prepare.”

  ***

  Torvin was waiting for her outside Vertigern’s pavilion. Jeren pursed her lips as she noticed them standing there expectantly, watching her approach.

  “You don’t have to go,” said Lara. “I mean, you’re about to face the Vision Rock. Surely—”

  “No. Better to get it over with. It’s something else about home and it’s better I know before I go with Ariah, don’t you think? Elayne and Vertigern are there too.”

  “Well, I’m coming with you. I don’t trust him any further than I could throw his scrawny body.”

  “Vertigern?”

  “No. Vertigern seems the soul of honour. The other one. Torvin. He makes my skin crawl.”

  Jeren blinked at her. “Really?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the Fey’na girl. “Really. He’s up to something. He wants you to go with them even more than the others.”

  Ridiculous. Jeren had known Torvin all her life. He was no more “up to something” than she was. And yet Lara was so convinced. Jeren shook her head.

  “Come with me then. Whatever they want, they don’t mean me harm. But I think they fear my brother and his power. They are right to.”

  And people who were afraid sometimes took steps too far to protect themselves.

  Inside the pavilion the atmosphere was no better. Vertigern stood by the door, with Elayne still right by his side. The interior was identical to the previous encampment, a home away from his home. Jeren wondered if his personal chambers in Grey Holt were decorated thus. So grand for what was, in essence, a tent just like the one she had shared with Shan, or the one she now shared with Lara. What did it say about the two ways of life, that the Fey’na were content to see something as it was, while the Holters felt the need to dress it in finery and pretend a sheet of canvas was a palace?

  Lara fidgeted at her side, and then Jeren saw the reason. Torvin stood behind the desk, a silk-wrapped length in his hands. He held it out to her and bowed his head.

  “What is it?” Jeren asked, with an uneasy feeling that she already knew.

  “I brought it for you. It’s your birthright, Jeren.”

  Reverently, he laid it on the desk. Despite the wrappings, it gave a metallic clunk and Jeren’s heart lurched within her. Only one thing had ever made her feel so uneasy, so…cold. She watched with horrid fascination as Torvin unwrapped it.

  Sunlight filtered through the canvas, glinting off the metal blade. Jeren swallowed hard. Outside, the sounds of the camp faded, dimmed. Her gaze ran up its length to the hilt, a masterpiece of craftsmanship. It was shaped like a hand, reaching out for her, a hand which would take the person seeking to use the sword, and if they were weak, to use them instead.

  Jeren knew it well, too well. Felan’s sword, blade of her family line, forged by the Fair Ones for her ancestor to help him contain his magic and stem the tide of madness, her father’s sword, her brother’s sword.

  She stepped back and dragged her horrified gaze back up to Torvin’s expectant face.

  “What—what do you think you’re doing, bringing that here?”

  “Gilliad cast it aside. It should be yours, Lady Jeren. So should River Holt.”

  “You’re speaking treason!”

  Elayne stiffened and Vertigern looked away, unwilling to meet Jeren’s furious glare. But Torvin didn’t flinch from her.

  He laughed, actually laughed. “Gilliad accused my family of treason. And you’ve committed it too, according to your brother. My Lady—”

  “Stop calling me that! You’re suggesting I take his place, that I should…what? Murder my brother? Take River Holt by force?”

  Vertigern cleared his throat at that moment and Jeren turned on him. He at least had the good grace to look guilty now that he finally faced her. “Jeren, it isn’t what you think.”

  “And you’re a party to this madness? Have you thought this through? Any of you?”

  Elayne’s fingers flexed beside her sword hilt. Beside Jeren, Lara stiffened, ready to attack. A Sh’istra’Phail at her back, albeit one as untried as herself, was a comfort. Strangely, she wasn’t worried about the two men, but Elayne…well, Elayne was another matter. There was no doubting the dislike radiating from the armour-clad woman. It was palpable.

  Jeren struggled to calm her outraged breath. “So I am expected to lead an attack on my own home—”

  “The intention isn’t for you to lead an attack,” Vertigern interrupted.

  That was like a slap in the face with a wet cloth.

  “Oh? So you’ll lead an attack on my home? That’s even better. Grey Holt attacks River Holt in my name, because that is how it will be seen, Vertigern. And, finding themselves under attack by another Holt, my people will rally around Gilliad. Perhaps he’ll call on allies of his own. Mountain Holt maybe. And then Grey Holt calls on North Holt and Mountain Holt calls on South Holt and so it goes, on and on, until war has engulfed all the Holtlands. Is that truly what you want? Any of you?”

  Vertigern didn’t move as her voice rose, didn’t flinch as she yelled the final words. “River Holt has few alliances left, Jeren,” he said. “Gilliad is unstable, dangerous, and no one wants another insane Scion of Jern loose on the world.”

  Ah yes, her insane forebears—monsters like Biran, murderers all. They always came up. No one wanted another one of them rampaging through the Holtlands.

  “They were my ancestors too.” She stepped towards him, but as she did Elayne’s sword slid free with a chilling ring of steel.

  The two men forgotten, Jeren focused entirely on Elayne, the steel in her hand and in her eyes. Jeren’s own rage faded away to the cool calm of potential combat. From behind her, an answering sound cut through the still air as Lara also drew a blade.

  Apprehension tightened in the room but Jeren didn’t flinch. “This is how it begins, you see? I won’t be party to that sort of madness. I won’t be an excuse or a tool to bring about this bloodshed!”

  “This is still yours,” said Torvin, his voice unfazed by her anger and her words. “Your destiny, your duty.”

  After weeks of training with Shan, her natural instincts took over. He had called it the Dance, that moment in battle when the world around her slowed, when she could move faster and more accurately than any opponent—well, any opponent but Shan anyway. She twisted away from Vertigern and Elayne, pushing Torvin back with one hand while the other seized the sword, the last thing she wanted to touch. So sharp it seemed to cut the air, it sang as she thrust it forward, right at Torvin. Stopping a hair’s breadth from his throat.

  His eyes widened in fear and he sucked in a breath. Yes, fear. He knew it now, understood it, and saw perhaps what a Scion of Jern could be. Sweat beaded on his brow, glistening like the tip of the Fey’na forged blade.

  Shivers ran up Jeren’s arm as the sword battled with her innate magic. For a moment, everything in her screamed that she should kill him. Or drop the sword and run away. But her hand seemed locked around the hilt, or else the hilt itself had closed its grip on her. Instead
, her own magic flared inside her and flooded her body. For a moment all she could do was stand there, staring into Torvin’s terrified face, and then sanity returned. More than sanity. Clarity. Healing.

  She lowered the sword and Torvin heaved in a breath. His shoulders slumped.

  “I am a Scion of Jern, Torvin. That will never change. My bloodline may have contained traitors, but it also contains heroes. Heroes like Felan. And that is who I will emulate. He would never have even listened to this sort of thing. And neither will I. Understand? Don’t ever mention it to me again!”

  Jeren swept from the tent, too enraged by the thought of what she might have done, of what they wanted her to do. The cold grip of the sword still filled her hand. She couldn’t let go of it, now she had it. It wouldn’t let her go. Striding to the edge of the camp, she kept going, out into the forest, to the place where she and Shan had last met. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t let it happen. Every time she turned around, the past was trying to drag her back. Because some of what they said was true.

  Nobody wanted another insane Scion of Jern loose on the world. To pillage their way across the Holtlands, to burn the temples and spill blood across the fertile soil of her home. And they feared that in Gilliad, such a monster was rising again.

  So did she.

  But worse, far worse, was the fear that if she did what they wanted, if she helped them defeat her own brother, he would be killed.

  And then she’d be the monster.

  Even Shan had forsaken the spectre of revenge to spare her that.

  Shan. She needed him. She wanted him so much it felt like her heart was breaking all over again. Shan understood her, loved her, helped her. Gods, he had done nothing but help her and still duty had taken him away from her. Just as her duty wanted to drag her away from him.

  Duty. Why did it feel like a curse now? Duty. A chore. A weight.

  The ground rose up beneath her. Or maybe she fell. Her knees slammed into the earth and she cried out.

  Arms encircled her, strong and yet gentle. For a moment her heart leaped in wild and unbounded joy as she was wrapped in an embrace. But it wasn’t Shan.

  “Do not fear, Jeren,” said Indarin. “You are one of us. Nothing will change that. Not a sword, nor a Sect Mother.”

  He held her while she sobbed, but when she looked in his face she saw nothing of the pity or disgust that she expected. For the first time, Indarin looked more like his brother than he would ever admit.

  “He is coming back,” he murmured. “For you. He is coming back for you.”

  It took time before Jeren could find her voice beneath her sobs. Mortified and yet comforted by Indarin’s presence, she wasn’t aware that Lara was back until her voice sounded out through the trees.

  “How is she?”

  “She’ll be fine,” said Indarin softly, like a man handling a spooked colt. “You were right to fetch me.”

  “You should have seen her in there, Indarin.” The girl’s voice glowed with pride. “She was amazing. The way she moved, the way she spoke.”

  “What did they offer?” he asked, ignoring Lara’s passionate description.

  Jeren lifted her face, wiped her eyes furiously. “This.” She let the sword fall from her hand, clattering onto the rocks. “And war. And death. Death upon death. They want to use me as a reason to attack River Holt, to kill Gilliad. They don’t understand. They don’t have a clue. They’re just…fools.”

  “Well…” Indarin helped her to her feet. “Some would say we all are.” He picked up the sword, turned it over in his hands and then offered it back to her. Jeren hesitated before taking it and her teacher gave her a thin smile. “Yes, an uncomfortable thing to carry, isn’t it?”

  “Makes my skin crawl. And the magic within me revolts.” She wrapped her hand around the hilt and took it back.

  “It was designed to control magic, to focus it, and to offer Felan a way to drain off the power that would drive him insane. When I was young our Shaman trained your ancestors how to do it, to use it rather than be used. That’s the secret of things, isn’t it? Not just magic but people, politics, perhaps even families.”

  Jeren met his eyes and saw both amusement and insight there. “And he taught you?”

  “Yes. Our days are longer than your kind’s, Jeren. Much longer. He died soon after your brother left. His only failure, he said. I sometimes think it broke his heart.” For a moment she saw pain in Indarin’s eyes as well. “I feel you’re already most of the way towards mastery of the sword, Jeren. It responds to you as heir, but it doesn’t try to dominate you. Any thoughts as to why?”

  Giving a small shake of her head, she stared at the Shaman, waiting for him to continue. Indarin rolled his eyes.

  “My magic is healing,” she said at last. “I felt it, when I took the sword. First I was so angry…so insanely angry, and then my magic responded, defending itself I suppose, and it was like a fire inside me, burning away the anger, cauterising the pain.”

  “When you answer my questions, you answer your own as well. You can use this sword, Jeren, perhaps better than many of your ancestors. Your magic isn’t rooted in violence. I think only Felan’s was as close.”

  “Felan’s magic?”

  “Yes. He could make things grow.”

  Jeren laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Felan, the warrior, Felan the consort of the Goddess Incarnate who had fought a thousand enemies, Felan who had won back River Holt from their foes and ruled it with a just, wise and firm hand until his death, the greatest warrior her line had ever produced, the paragon held up before every Scion of Jern since… Felan made things grow.

  “Yes,” Indarin agreed, smiling now. “One doesn’t expect someone with the soul of a gardener to be a warrior. Nor one with the soul of a healer. Yet here you are, about to go to the Vision Rock and see what will become of you.”

  That killed her mirth. “I’m not ready,” she whispered.

  Indarin took her hand, wrapping it more firmly about the hilt. The healing magic began to flood through her again, like warm honey, golden light flowing beneath her skin. “You are, you know. The key to facing the vision is to know who you are, and what you want. And now all that is clear to you.”

  And he was right. She knew it. Knew it in her soul. What she was, and all she wanted.

  “I am Jeren, Scion of Jern, and I am the mate of Shan’ith Al-Fallion. And I want him back.”

  The Wolf's Mate: A Tale of the Holtlands, Book 2

  Chapter Nine

  As they climbed the mountain to the sacred pools at Aran’Mor, the Sh’istra’Phail started singing. Their voices blended in a high and intricate harmony. It was the most beautiful thing Jeren had ever heard. It stirred her soul, made tears sting her eyes, and yet she had to listen.

  “What song is it?” asked Elayne. Jeren hadn’t heard the warrior woman come up beside her. Her face looked bemused, as if she had never heard music before. “What are they singing about?”

  “Home,” said Jeren, and the word caught in her throat. “This is their temple, their holy of holies, their home.”

  “I…I had no idea. I thought they were warriors, killers.”

  “They are.” Then she corrected herself. “We are. We’re all the same. Or at least not so different. Are you sorry you came?”

  “I came with him, with Lord Vertigern.” Elayne glanced back to where her Lord walked behind them, deep in conversation with Torvin. And there it was, in her voice, in that glance.

  “You love him, don’t you?”

  A smile ghosted across her lips. “It doesn’t matter. I’m his bodyguard, nothing more. And why would someone like him ever look at me?”

  Jeren winced inwardly. She had been his betrothed. But more than that, she’d been the thing to which he had aspired, possibly still did. Elayne stood on a lower social level, but she too aspired. How could that be wrong? Why was it accepted for Vertigern to want her, but not for Elayne to want him?

  “Then he needs
to look more carefully, Elayne. He is missing what is right beneath his nose.”

  Vertigern’s bodyguard flushed, made a feeble excuse and slowed her pace to fall back to where her Lord and Torvin walked behind them.

  Jeren shook her head, alone once more. Why Vertigern had insisted that they come along at all, she didn’t know. They were neither wanted nor needed.

  And yet some small part of her, a part she was desperately trying to quell, felt undeniably grateful for the company. After a lifetime of loneliness, even though she was never alone, her time with Shan had been a haven of companionship and love. She had not realised how much she had come to depend on the company of Lara, and even Indarin, over such a short time. When Vertigern had requested and received an audience with Ariah, Jeren had thought little of it. But once there he had insisted that he would come with them to Aran’Mor, along with Elayne and Torvin of course, and bear witness for the Holtlands. Jeren was a child of the Holts after all, a mortal, and a member of the nobility. He was too, and once upon a time, she would have become his wife.

  Apparently his arguments were compelling, because the next thing Jeren knew, they were coming as well. More disturbing to her was the news that Indarin and Lara would stay behind. She could only have so many witnesses, she knew that. Gods, but she had hoped one of them would be Shan.

  As evening fell, they made camp on the edge of the sacred ground. The atmosphere was quiet, almost peaceful now. As the moon rose over the summit of Sheninglas, she drifted away from the main part of the company. Standing on the side of the mountain, on the edge of the world given to the Fey’na by the Bright God Himself, Jeren breathed in deeply of that sharp, fresh air and a sense of peace enveloped her. He was coming back, Indarin said. How did he know?

  It would be time to go all too soon. She was about to turn away from the edge, to return to the fires and try to get a brief touch of comfort and warmth before she and Ariah started the cold and lonely trek into the canyon which contained the Vision Rock, when her eyes caught a flash of moonlight off a weapon.