Mariah considered flying ahead, scouting for options that wouldn’t be visible to someone walking these roads, but she looked back toward Shira, so small on the road behind her, and decided against it. The light was starting to wane, so she instead turned east and started scanning the hills for a cave where they could make camp.
She found a narrow cave sheltered by trees soon enough, but she wasn’t looking forward to another night of strained conversation. It was time to get everything out into the open. If Shira was having second thoughts, it was probably better to get them out now. Mariah found herself wishing that Xae were with them after all. He had never shied away from confronting Shira. In fact, Mariah had broken up more than a few arguments between the two, but they had ended as close friends, nonetheless. Maybe by annoying her, as Xae did, Mariah could get through to Shira.
As impatience took her, she shrieked until Shira finally looked up. Then, the hawk dove for a copse of trees just off the road.
Hitting the snow between two spindly pines, she transformed immediately. As she stood up from the squat she had ended up in and brushed the snow from her clothes, Shira approached her.
“Did you see somethin’?” The young woman looked from side to side, brown curls coming loose from the hood of her cloak as she did so.
“I found us a cave for the night.” Mariah pushed her own hood and scarf off her head. The brisk air felt good on her skin. “Don’t worry. There’s no one on the road between here and the gorge. C’mon.” She turned and led the way.
They were both quiet on the journey through the trees and as they climbed a short, rocky switchback to the cave Mariah had discovered. It faced south, away from the road, and had a low, squat opening. Mariah ducked through and surveyed the inside before Shira joined her. Although it wasn’t very large, probably just deep enough for them to lie down side by side, it was dry and clear of animal droppings. She began to loosen her belongings from her back, planning to retrace their steps as her hawk and do what she could to obscure their footprints before darkness settled. It was unlikely that they were being followed, but she didn’t like leaving things to chance.
“What’s with you? You ain’t said a word since we left the road.” Shira stood in the cave entrance, hands on hips. She had the gall to look annoyed. Mariah returned her stare, openmouthed. “What is it then? You hungry or somethin’? I thought you’d just catch a mouse or—”
“I’m not hungry, Shira,” Mariah said through clenched jaws. She couldn’t quite meet her friend’s eyes. “I just … I think you should go back home is all.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s just, well, you’re obviously not happy with this whole thing. And we both know I could have been in Eaglespire last week if I hadn’t needed to wait for you.” The words burned coming out of her mouth, but maybe if she got Shira mad enough, the woman would see reason.
Her friend’s mouth fell open, and she stared at Mariah for a long moment. “But you said … you said you needed me. That we were in this together, just like last time.”
Glassy eyes met Mariah’s. Shira was not mad. She was hurt. Damn it. Mariah switched tactics quickly, beseeching her friend. “Maybe you could help your parents at the inn, you know, get stuff ready for the children, so they’re ready if I manage to …”
This time, Shira’s jaw tightened, the anger Mariah had been looking for suddenly on the surface. Shira jabbed a finger at her chest. “You’re not foolin’ me, lady. We both know that my folks are perfectly capable of doin’ whatever we need them to do. Why are you tryin’ to get rid of me?”
Shira had said it herself, and Mariah let out a frustrated huff. “If your parents are so capable, why have you been fretting about them since before we left the Hideaway? Honestly, I want you with me. I don’t want to do this alone, but you’re not here, not really. You’ve been completely distracted since we left, always looking back. You didn’t have to come with me—”
“Listen here, hawk breath, this isn’t just your fight.” Shira pushed Mariah back against the rough stone wall. “It’s mine too. But for the grace of the Althamir, I coulda been one of those kids. I know you coulda been one, too, but you managed to get outta their reach.” Bitterness filled her words. “This land”—her arm swept out in a wide arc—“it’s my home. I been here every day of my life, and I’m ready for things to change, even if I have to do it myself.” She growled before she dropped her hand. “I’m doin’ this … with or without ya.”
“But your parents—”
Through clenched jaws, Shira answered before turning away and staring out at the growing darkness. “My parents will have to tend to themselves as they always have.” The line of her back was stiff as a rod, and she sounded as if she was trying to convince herself more than anyone.
Mariah uncurled her fingers from the tight fists that had formed at her side and took a deep breath before laying her hand on her friend’s arm. “Why, Shira? You didn’t worry about them so much before, when you decided to follow Xae and me to Glenley. Why now?”
Shira grumbled something unintelligible before muttering, “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
Mariah laughed and gently nudged her. “Would that be anything new?”
Shira’s brown eyes met hers, one corner of her lip curling up in a half-smile. Then, the expression fell away into a blank stare. “It’s my dreams. Since the night before we left, I’ve been dreamin’ about her, and she’s been telling me things, bad things, Mari.”
Mariah’s shoulders tensed. “She? She who?”
“Mari, it’s crazy, I know it is, but I think it’s Biorna.”
Mariah knew the name from her books, and a fearsome image filled her mind. Biorna was the White Bear, the bear goddess of the Althamir.
Chapter Seven
Rubble and Ruin
Several days later, Mariah and Shira approached the small gate that marked the border of Eaglespire. Despite the treacherous landscape and icy roads they had just traversed, Mariah was more at ease than she had been on their first days out of Grof. If only she had confronted Shira earlier instead of waiting so long. Although she now had the same worry tickling the back of her mind that Shira had apparently been carrying since the night before they had departed Grof, it was a great relief to have the strain between them lifted.
It was funny how quickly she’d come to depend on her friend, on her light, joking manner and ability to laugh at just about anything, but Mariah understood how the dreams must have affected Shira, how similar ones must have affected Gwyn when Mariah had first shown up in Cillian.
In their last night at the Herring Hideaway and every night since, Biorna, the Althamiran goddess whose animal form was a great white bear, had been visiting Shira’s dreams. Shira was sure it was the goddess and not just her own worries sending her visions of her parents. The visions were vague but unmistakable in their message: Jahl and Rose were in danger, and if Shira stayed or returned, the danger would only increase. Either way, it seemed as if their lives were under some kind of threat. In typical god form, Biorna had apparently not given Shira any kind of clue about what kind of danger it was or why their daughter couldn’t protect them.
“Why tell me if I can’t do anything about it?” Shira had fumed back in the cave the night Mariah had confronted her.
Mariah shook her head as she began to build a little fire in the front of their rocky shelter out of some dry sticks she had stowed away in her pack. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me before we left that morning.”
“The first dream … I thought it was just a nightmare. I mean, this is a big undertakin’, even for me. It’s normal to be nervous, right? Sure, that first … vision, it made me antsy as a cornered mouse, but I still thought it was just a dream.”
“You’ve had plenty of chances to tell me since,” Mariah chided as she struck a rock down the edge of the fire striker she had
dug out of its little box.
“What could you have done besides worry right alongside me?” Shira muttered. “Besides, what you’re doing … what we’re doing, it’s important.”
She looked up from the little flame that had caught as she sat back, side by side with Shira. The other woman wasn’t looking at her. “I’d give it all up in a minute to help your parents, Shira.” Mariah put an arm around her. “They feel like my family too.”
Shira’s head leaned back and came to rest on her shoulder. “You know, I ain’t used to havin’ a friend around to talk to, I mean, someone that I can really talk to about everything, well, except Ma. I’ve gotten so used to hidin’ the real me that it’s strange sometimes not to.”
She knew a thing or two about hiding her true self. “Maybe once we get to Eaglespire, we can send a message to Xae. He’d be happy to fly over and check on them. Gods, he’s probably looking for an excuse to see your ma again. I’d do it, but I don’t want to leave you alone.”
Shira was silent for a few moments before she nodded. “Okay. I don’t want you to leave me alone either.”
She chuckled, and Mariah had given her a squeeze before going back to tend the fire.
So, it seemed the gods, whose very existence Mariah had doubted until recently, were already proving to be a thorn in her side. Were these visitations, like the ones Gwyn had experienced, intended to guide them or manipulate them? The visions Old Cat Eyes had sent to Gwyn, those designed to keep Mariah in Cillian, to keep her from going home again, had almost ruined their relationship in the end because of the secrets they had forced the old woman to keep.
Mariah wondered. Did the gods together have one big design or was each working toward some separate end, some selfish desire? As she took the last few steps to Eaglespire’s outer gate with Shira at her side, she doubted she’d ever know. She almost wished those gods didn’t exist after all. Human greed, like the kind Rothgar was infamous for, was simple and understandable. But the goals of gods? How could she even hope to imagine what they were up to or why?
She adjusted her cloak hood to make sure it was covering her face, and her mind quickly drifted away from the thoughts of the Althamir as the shapes of familiar buildings came into view, tickling her memories and making the muscles of her chest clench tightly.
Shira leaned close. “So, where was yours? You said your da was a smith?”
Mariah nodded. “Up ahead, just around the bend there.” She gestured down the road to her left. Her heart quickened. Was it possible that they were still here? Was Magnus waiting for her just yards away? She barely remembered the feel of his great strong arms around her, but the memory called to her. Her pace increased to match the rhythm of her heart, and Mariah took the steps that would lead her to the place she had run away from so long ago.
* * *
It was gone. Her childhood home was gone, reduced to rubble. It was as if a giant hand had come down and crushed it or scooped it up, leaving the houses and structures that surrounded it untouched.
The cobblestone road beneath her feet was still the same, and many of the buildings around her looked as if they hadn’t changed since the day she had run from Eaglespire. The baker’s cottage, with its wide window facing the street, was still there, as was the little path through the backyard, the trail that led to the stream where she had gathered water every morning for the smithy. The path was still well used; the snow was trodden flat as it snaked out of sight into the trees beyond the village’s borders.
But the house and the smithy were in ruins. Only the barest remains were left. The massive forge was turned onto its side, a giant crack down its middle. How many men had it taken to accomplish that? Had a Ceo San slave been involved? She could see the soldiers in her mind’s eye, sneers on their faces, their black leather armor proclaiming their allegiance to King Rothgar.
The stones that remained were blackened and charred. They stuck out of the snow, piled haphazardly as if someone had gone through them, scavenging for something usable from the vestiges of her childhood. On the house side, bits of long ago charred wood splintered up through the snow, left as a warning to anyone else who dared harbor a Ceo San, a freak like her.
When? Had this happened the day she had run or more recently? Mariah’s hands flew to her mouth as images of flames leaping into the air filled her mind—her mother screaming in terror, her father, still injured, trapped in his bed while the house burned down around them. She turned away, squeezing her eyes shut as if it would make the visions disappear. “They …” The soldiers must have burned down the house. Was it because she had fled? “I …” Shira’s arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Mariah trembled. She should have stayed, let them take her. At least then, her parents would have been okay. Now … were they dead? Of course they were. How could they have survived this? “I have to go,” she choked out. She didn’t bother to look around, to check if anyone had noticed them enter the snow-covered village or turn away from the ruins.
She started walking back the way they had come, her eyes cast downward to the road, her hood hiding the tears that dripped down her cheeks and melted the snow beneath her like summer raindrops. Mariah had reached the short stone wall that surrounded the village when she felt Shira’s hand settle on her elbow, but she didn’t look back.
“Lady, maybe we shouldn’t run off so soon.”
The south gate was unguarded as it had always been, and Mariah stepped beyond it, ignoring Shira and staring at the empty road before her.
Snow drifted in steep dunes along the rough path that passing travelers had carved out. A heaviness filled Mariah’s muscles, as if she were incapable of carrying her own weight, and she slumped backward until her hips came to rest on the edge of the wall. Her eyes rose to the vast white sky as her tears froze on her already raw skin.
There, through that air, toward those mountains to the south, she had escaped once before. How many years now? Nearly eight?
Less than a day, and she could be back in Cillian. She could escape again, curl up in a ball in her hammock in Firebend … and forget. Maybe never get up again. Emptiness and longing filled her, and a tingling warmth sang through her, rising quickly up her spine, her head still aimed toward the clouds.
“Lady!” Shira jabbed her sharply in the ribs, and Mariah gasped, the cold of the wind hitting her and sucking the heat away like a slap. Her fingers, which hadn’t even seemed real a second ago, dug into the mortar between the stones of the wall, protected by her gloves from being scraped raw.
She had nearly transformed right there, right next to the road where anyone from the village might have seen. A sob came upon her unexpectedly, and she clenched her jaw to stop, but a desperate groan still escaped her lips. She had waited so long to learn her parents’ fate. The need to know had become so much more urgent once she had discovered her mother had not betrayed her after all. Mariah didn’t know what she had expected to find here, but it hadn’t been this.
Although her eyes were blinded by tears, when she felt Shira’s hand envelop her own, she let her friend tug her up off the wall and away, toward the trees to the west of the road, away from spying eyes. The tears kept falling, but Mariah let Shira guide her until shadows overwhelmed them.
“You can change now if you’d like,” Shira whispered, her fingers gently rubbing the tears from Mariah’s cheeks.
“I … I can’t.” Her voice hitched. It was if a vice was squeezing her chest, and she began to shake.
“I’ll keep watch,” her friend replied. The same warmth that had come from her only moments before emanated from Shira, and suddenly, a great brown bear stood before her. The animal nudged Mariah’s hand with her nose before beginning to walk off toward the edge of the wood, but Mariah grabbed a fistful of her fur before she got far.
“Please, Shira. Don’t leave me.”
The bear turned her head, her glowing brown eyes considering M
ariah for a moment before she reversed course, curling herself around her friend’s legs. As Shira settled onto the ground, she made a gentle huffing sound, bumping Mariah again with her nose.
Letting go of the sobs that were still trapped inside, the hawk girl let herself fall into the warmth of the great brown bear. She let herself fall into the circle of her friend’s body, burying her face in the cream-tipped fur and letting grief take her.
* * *
Before night had fallen, Shira convinced Mariah to go back into town so they could get a room at the local inn. A night or two might give them time to learn what had happened to her parents. Remembering Shira’s talent for effortlessly wheedling information out of people, she assented. Her insides still felt raw and empty, so she let herself be led back into town.
As they approached Eaglespire’s lone inn, the Rookery, Mariah adjusted her scarf. They had agreed that Shira would do most of the talking. The less attention she drew to herself, the less likely she would be recognized from her old life here. It helped that she had never really met many of the villagers or gotten to know them, as much as she kept to the house and smithy.
“And your … what did you call it? Deformity? … It’s gone. Folks have a way of lookin’ straight past you if you’re not what they’re expectin’ to see. Now that hair, though … you better keep that scarf tied down tight.”
And she had, before pulling up the hood to her cloak. Even if the hood came down, the scarf would still cover all of her hair.
The Rookery was a stone structure about the size of the Cruel Dragon in Kannuk. Just like Kannuk, Eaglespire saw a lot of travelers moving north and south in the warmer months, either to Glenley or to Kilgereen, although maybe not so many as the northern city, at least not in Mariah’s time, but the inn was still larger than the population itself needed, unlike the Herring Hideaway. The stone was worn and cracked in a few places, but Mariah did not pay it much mind.
Instead, her eyes strayed to a tiny cottage across the way, not much more than a door and a small window squeezed between two other buildings. It was the healer’s cottage. Or it had been. On her last day in Eaglespire, she had run there, frantic to get Garrett to help her father. It looked run down and abandoned, and Mariah wondered whether the healer had moved on or even died. How old had he been?
Revelation of the Dragon Page 8
