“Have you seen a white-haired man? Marsais the Seer?”
In answer, the Kamberian pointed to the ramparts. Isiilde squinted at the looming walls in surprise. With a muttered thanks, she flitted off, racing across the bailey and up the narrow stairs. Marsais stood on the rampart walkway. He was not alone. A white-robed cleric stood close, their heads were bent together, deep in conversation.
When she started to join the pair, two guards stepped in her path. Anger blazed. “Excuse me,” she said.
The Wraith Guards did not move, but her voice drew attention. Marsais looked up and frowned at the pair. “By the gods, let her through before she burns you to a crisp.”
One of the guards, who wore ten earrings in her pointed ears, looked to the cleric. He dipped his head and the guards stepped aside.
Isiilde sauntered past the guards. She walked up to Marsais and brushed his hand in greeting. His fingers closed around her own. There was strength in that grip. “I didn’t want to wake you,” he murmured.
“You should have.” She looked him over. When his fever had burned at its hottest, the clerics had cut his long hair. Now it was an unruly mass of white, curling around his pointed ears. Dressed in doublet and billowing sleeves, he looked so young and dashing, but his left arm was a reminder of the past days. It was still tucked and bandaged to his chest. “You shouldn’t be out in this cold, Marsais. Not so soon.”
“Precisely what I told him,” the cleric said behind her. She turned to the man, but his cowl was as deep and low as his voice, and all she saw was a dark chin.
“I needed to stretch my legs.”
“That’s why they’re so long,” the cleric smirked. “You’re always stretching.”
“Not long enough, or I’d have fled from the cleric who shaved off my goatee.”
“It was scruff.”
Marsais rubbed his chin. He looked like a freshly-shorn sheep, smooth and bashful. She grinned. “Isiilde, this is...” Marsais gestured at the healer.
“A cleric of Chaim,” the man said. With his hands tucked in wide sleeves, he bowed low. “A pleasure. I’ll leave you to him, my lady. I think you’ll have better luck convincing him to lie back down.” As the cleric straightened, she saw a flash of silver from beneath the cowl. His eyes. The cleric turned and made for the rampart stairs, and she watched as the two high-ranking Wraith Guards fell in step behind him.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“A friend.”
She narrowed her eyes, but Marsais turned from her suspicion and sat on the wall between crenellations. A cold wind blew a flurry of snow at them. Isiilde tugged her cloak up to her chin, and edged next to Marsais, using him as a wind break.
He turned towards the rising sun. Isiilde studied his profile. A noble brow, sharp ears and nose, high cheekbones, and long lips. Pyrderi’s words swam to the surface of her thoughts: ‘There is a tad more than a touch in that Lindale.’ He had once admitted that he was part Lindale, but considering the forbidden knowledge he possessed, the power he wielded, and the company he kept—was he one of the Fey, too? Is that where his foresight stemmed from? When Marsais had stood alongside Pyrderi, she could not deny the resemblance.
“I wanted to see the sunrise,” he said, interrupting her thoughts.
“You didn’t think you would ever see another.”
“No,” he admitted. “And by all accounts, I should not be alive to see this one.” Grey eyes focused on her, and he wrapped an arm around her waist, drawing her near. She nestled against the side of his neck, inhaling his scent: the sand and sea and everything warm.
“I’m glad you are alive.”
“Plenty of chance for that to change,” he quipped. “We still have a bit before the sun rises.”
Isiilde smiled against his neck. “I don’t have any plans to push you off the ramparts.”
“Thank the gods for that,” he murmured into her hair. “Have I ever told you how brilliant you are?”
She drew back catching his eyes with her own. “Now and again.”
“You’re remarkable too.”
Warmth spread across her cheeks, and she idly toyed with his hair, running her fingers through the unruly mass. She ached to feel him, to feel his spirit burning inside of her again. “Did you know Witman would be in your vault?”
“I wanted you to run.”
“I would never leave you.”
“That’s what I fear.”
“Marsais, I...” she hesitated, trying to put the emotion churning in her heart into words. He waited with gentle eyes and infinite patience. “I’m already torn without you. Whether we are bonded or not, you’re a part of me. And if you die, you will take a part of me with you, regardless. Do you understand?”
“I do,” he said urgently. “I have bought myself time—nothing more.”
“What did you do?” Her eyes flickered to that scar beneath his doublet. The one that was no longer as raw and fresh as it had once been.
Marsais did not answer. She drew away from his arms and leant against the opposite crenellation. Isiilde looked towards the moody sea, to where the sun cracked over the horizon, bringing a dim, cold light. In silence, they watched the sunrise, but the pale orb that hung in the wintery grey did nothing to warm her heart. The nymph doubted that the sun in the Great Expanse could manage that feat now.
“The coins.” The silence was so thick between them that she was startled when his words reached across the chasm. “When I left the Isle for six months, it wasn’t only to stretch my legs.”
“Imagine that,” she said dryly.
His eyes slid to her. The grey gleamed in the morning light, turning to luminous silver. She blinked, and stared, and was drawn into that gaze. It was like a myriad of stars shining from a clear night. “I journeyed to the Bastardlands to investigate a ruin under Iilenshar—in the west chasm.”
“It’s bottomless,” she blurted out.
“So legend claims,” he agreed. “At one time, when the realm was whole, the citadel of the Guardians sat there. A section of it was salvaged, and now the isle floats over the gorge, but the ruins—where Zahra and Dagenir battled—lies at the bottom of the gorge. The discs you glimpsed in my hand when I showed them to Witman at the festival, were the last fragments of the shattered Orb.”
She gaped. It took a long moment for her brain to start thinking. “You had Witman disguise them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
“Because a lot of powerful people would like to have the fragments?”
He inclined his head. “Gods of other realms, the Guardians of Morchaint, and even...Iilenshar.”
“Why didn’t you leave them at the bottom of the chasm?”
“A vision—which I now know is true—and not a seed of suggestion planted by a vengeful Fey. If Tharios had known about the fragments, he would have snatched them from me when he had the chance. And if Pyrderi had known, he wouldn’t have faced me with such arrogance.”
“Where are the shards?”
Marsais pointed to his chest.
“In a pocket?”
“I am now bound to the fragments. They are a part of me.”
Her mind reeled. “What does that mean?”
“That I’ve revealed myself. I used the Orb’s power on Pyrderi.”
“Can’t you just carve the discs out of your flesh?”
“It isn’t the shards themselves.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s who I am.”
A memory tickled the back of her mind, of a distracted nymph in Yasimina’s class. Isiilde had been doodling the interconnecting realms, and in front of the other apprentices had explained something that Marsais said: Fyrsta was known as the Realm of Gods.
Marsais reached for a waterskin by his side. “What is this?”
“An empty waterskin,” she replied.
“Ah, but it can hold wine or ale just as easily. Would you say
a more literal answer is a cured pig’s bladder?”
Marsais traced a water rune on the leather. It flared and filled with moisture gathered from the air. “Now what is it?”
“A pig’s bladder full of water.”
“Yes, now we might call it a waterskin. But what makes it that?”
“The water inside.”
“Does it make the water?”
“No.”
“Where did the water come from?”
“The air.”
“Did the air make the water?” he asked, patiently.
“Water comes from the sky, the clouds, underground springs.”
“Exactly.” He carefully set the waterskin aside. “The Guardians are the skins that were filled with the essence of Life. The source is the Sylph. Whereas I am the skin that was filled with the essence of Time. The source is the ancient cycle of light and dark. Essentially, I’m a cracked pig’s bladder about to burst.”
“You are the ol’Father,” she realized.
Marsais winced. “I detest that name.”
Isiilde could have slapped herself. “Oen’s been saying it all along—is ol’bastard more apt?” she asked with a wry twist.
“It is.” He flashed a grin. “Contrary to legend, I am not the Sylphs’ father. From what I can recall, she and I have not always seen eye to eye.” His gaze flicked upwards. “I’m sure the remaining Sylph is fuming at the moment.”
“It’s true then—there were three Sylphs?”
Sadness swirled in that starry gaze. “There were,” he whispered.
“And the ol’Father favored Death most of all,” she quoted softly.
“She was... my heart.” A shudder swept through his body, and he shifted, as if shrugging that memory away. “This shell has changed many times over, but the spirit remains. Hmm, not unlike the rains. It’s an endless cycle. The same drop will fall on the earth time and time again, but it recalls little of its life or journey, only that joyous moment of falling.”
“Pyrderi was right, then. He knew. Oen is the wild god Ulfhidhin.”
“Spirits do not always stay in the ol’River,” confirmed Marsais. “The veil between lives begins to thin. Once, he was; now, he is not, and yet, he is. Like a diamond with many facets, it all depends from where the light is shining.”
“It would be a dull diamond with only one facet.”
He smiled. “Precisely.”
“And what of me? Was I the first queen of Kambe in another life?”
“A few are born who have never lived before. Those spirits shine the brightest. You are many things, Isiilde. That’s why I worry for your safety.”
She brushed that subject away. “Why aren’t the other Guardians in danger? Why will others seek you out?” She thought of Witman and his fear of the Others. Hearing the steel in Marsais’ voice, she wondered if the dwarf might not be as crazed as he sounded.
“I know many things.” His voice was worn and tired. “Secrets that would make a god weep with fear.”
“When you can remember.”
“There is that,” he admitted. “There are a great many blanks in my mind. Hallways that lead nowhere; doors that do not open.”
“So you are a maze?”
“I’m not sure I have an end, or a beginning. But yes, such is the tapestry of time.”
“That’s fine. I like puzzles.” She chewed on her lip in thought. “You said you were wounded when the Orb shattered. That’s when you got that scar.”
He nodded.
“After the coins disappeared, in the desert, your scar changed. It’s nearly healed.”
“Unexpectedly, the shards acted as a kind of patch to this cracking waterskin,” he explained, gesturing at himself.
Clean and shaven as he was now, Isiilde had a hard time envisioning that comparison. She wanted to drag him to the closest bed and ride him until he forgot his name. She took her lower lip between her teeth, thoughts spiraling in delightful directions.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” he said.
“Hmhmm.”
Marsais gave her a knowing look. “You’re distracted.”
“I am capable of pondering more than one thing at a time.” She knocked her thoughts back on track. “So if the Orb held the Sylph’s power and caused the Shattering when it broke, what happens when the vessel of Time is destroyed?”
“No one knows, myself included. When the Orb shattered, it tore down the veils between my lives, destroying the wards that I had woven around my spirit before being reborn. Much like the wards I weave into a transformation, only infinitely more complicated. I was both lost and changed in ways I do not fully understand. My death may very well trigger another Shattering. Time itself may stop.”
The nymph blinked.
“Or not.” He lifted a shoulder. “But there are those who serve the Void that would risk such a destruction.”
Isiilde stood, turning away to think. Confusion swirled in her mind like an endless weave. She began to pick out the threads, snipping, connecting, until she unraveled the knot. “Then why did you bind the shards to yourself? Why expose yourself?”
“It was a reckless whim. I’m broken already; what more could it hurt?”
“You said it acted as a patch. Are your visions clearer?”
“I haven’t had a vision since I absorbed the Orb’s power.”
She cocked her head. “That sounds more like a plug than a patch. If you hold the essence of Time, then...” She trailed off as another thought took root. “Did the Orb’s power interfere with your own in some way? Has it silenced your foresight altogether?”
“I don’t know.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t have a theory.”
“You have spent entirely too much time with me.”
“Not near enough.” She waited, and he obliged.
“Do you remember, years ago, when I took your fire rune during King’s Folly and you were so incensed that you tipped over the table?”
Isiilde cleared her throat. “Perhaps.”
“I think I may have done the equivalent to this realm.” He took a shaky breath. “Instead of adding more threads to the tapestry of time; the tapestry has begun to unravel.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You know I abhor knitting metaphors.”
“The board has been cleared; the pieces have not yet been placed. Therefore, I have not had a vision of any future. At the moment, all is in chaos.”
Isiilde considered this. “I find that strangely comforting.”
Marsais chuckled, but it contained no humor, only a bitter sweet rasp. “I’m glad someone does.”
“If everyone is in darkness, then no one has the advantage.”
“I prefer to have the advantage.”
“That’s a very dull way to live. You’ll never be surprised.”
“My heart can only take so many surprises.”
“Did you know Pyrderi would be on the Isle?”
“Not in the flesh. The spirits of the Fey, certainly. They have always been here, but seeing him in the throne room was a shock,” he admitted. “There was someone lurking in the shadows of my visions, but I assumed it was Karbonek whispering from his prison. An unforgivable oversight on my part.”
“You have to ask forgiveness before you can call it unforgivable.”
His lips quirked. “Wise words. Then I ask yours.”
“For what?”
“Pyrderi manipulated some of my visions. Very skillfully, I might add. He led me to believe that if we bonded, things would go badly.”
“Oh.” A cascade of cause and effect spiraled in her mind, of all the little choices, the wrong turns, the spiral of events that had landed her in the washroom. And that small insidious voice that whispered ‘if only.’ She crushed that voice. It was pointless. “Why would he do that?”
“Regardless of what set him down his dark path, Pyrderi became the very monster he loathed. My confusion, my... suffering, and yours, gave him pleasure.”
&nb
sp; Her skin crawled with that thought. “Did you think I would accept his offer?”
Marsais did not answer immediately. “I did not know what you would do,” he said at last. “You are faerie, just as Pyrderi once was, and you too have faced many horrors. To be honest, his scheme was not without its appeal. Humans have caused this realm endless grief.”
“Then why help them?”
“It’s not my place to destroy hope. And that is precisely what Pyrderi would have done. He could not be trusted.”
“I’d have been his puppet.”
“Indeed. How did you see through his lies?”
She snorted. “He said My Queen; not Your Majesty. I’m not a fool, Marsais. The only one I will tolerate that from, is you. I’m your dear, and no one else’s.”
“Hmm, by the way, how am I doing?”
“With what?”
“Not indulging you.”
“I think I missed being indulged,” she admitted.
“Only when you feel like it?”
“Exactly,” she beamed, and then sobered. “What happens next? Why are you telling me this? Is this some roundabout way of telling me that we can’t bond?”
“You have your fire,” he reminded gently.
She crossed her arms. “I’m Nuthaanian. I can bloody bond with as many as I want.”
Marsais barked out a laugh. “It would not surprise me in the least,” he said with a grin. “I am, after all, your Druid, and nothing more. But to answer your question, I told you all of this because I’ll not have secrets between us.”
“You keep secrets from yourself, Marsais.”
“Not on purpose,” he defended.
“Then I’ll accept the same.”
He inclined his head.
“You need to know what you’re getting into. There will come a time when I ask you to run. I expect you to do so.”
“Is that an ultimatum?”
“Yes.”
“You know I won’t.”
“I know,” he sighed. His eyes dimmed to the color of a moody sea, and he turned his gaze back to the horizon.
Isiilde was at a loss. Not from his revelations—she had always suspected there was something more to the man—but by his ultimatum. How could he ever ask such a thing? She glared at his back.
The Broken God (Legends of Fyrsta Book 3) Page 42
