Shit.
He opened his eyes in time to see a swirl of long, jet black, hair vanish through a doorway framed in carved ice. The statuesque woman turned and glanced back before she disappeared into the nether regions of the glacial palace. Indigo eyes, cold and wide, stared through a fan of impossibly long black lashes. Distrust and anger glinted in their cool depths for a split second before the doorway stood empty.
“Wait! I’m sorry, don’t go,” Jaeger called out to the she-elf , the pain in his head now battling the guilt hitting him low in the gut. He was a guest, injured, and had been somehow rescued by her people. He had blasphemed in their realm and though their god, Light, was one he’d never heard of before meeting Gabaran, he had accepted her existence. “Who are you?”
***
Gabaran studied the small shape from afar, a worried frown dragging down the corners of his mouth. She sat perfectly still in the clearing, a bundle of dark blue cloth that was a stark contrast to the crystalline white snow blanketing the ground. She prayed to The Four still, a futile act of faith by one abandoned so callously by them.
It was by who that worried him most.
Why had Light given care of the wounded girl to him and not returned her to her own people instead? He shook his head against the cascade of dark thoughts.
The crunch of footsteps behind him was expected, as was the bitter voice.
“She prays still, uncle, after all these years? She shouldn’t even be out of bed yet.”
Gabaran’s chin fell to his chest. The furred lining of his cloak riffled with his heavy sigh.
“You expect otherwise, niece?”
“I would rather have thought hundreds of years with her own kind would make her see the truth. The truth you and I both know,” Sestiravi said. Her breath fogged the icy air from within a furred cowl. “That the gods are gone. They have forsaken them.”
“We don’t know that, Sesti.”
“We know one god and she does not speak to us right now.”
“Light is,” Gabaran muttered. “Our god, our hope.”
“Not hers?” She gestured at the still figure in indigo robes. “She brought Emaranthe to us, dying. Why?”
“I don’t know. What of the others, niece?”
“The blue-eyed Earthlander is awake. Pity,” Sestiravi said. She tugged the cowl closer against the frosty air. “He’s already spoken treason, uncle.”
Gabaran grunted, but a small smile twitched his mouth up.
“You’re lucky that’s all he did, niece.”
“They can’t stay, uncle. They are not our people.” She dragged her gaze from the unmoving bundle huddled in the clearing, to the towering figure of her only claimable blood relative. “They need to go back where they came from. Immortal problems aren’t ours.”
“Sesti,” Gabaran rebuked. “Enough. They’ve suffered.”
Sesti frowned at him.
“Uncle, have you not suffered more?”
Gabaran exhaled a bark of a laugh.
“Not enough, apparently.”
Sesti took the hint and let the subject go. She turned to study the shrouded figure in the snowy field. She could count a thousand times how often the Earthlander mage she called sister had done so during the years she’d stayed with them.
“Why does she do this, uncle?” Sesti asked. She had asked before, of course, but always Gabaran’s saddened gaze halted her tongue before an answer was spoken aloud. This time, there would be no avoiding the answer, not with two other Earthlanders and two Eideili, the forest elves, now taking refuge in their hidden kingdom.
Gabaran stiffened, but didn’t pull his gaze from the small figure bundled in a frost edged cloak far too large for her. He sighed and ran a gloved palm over his face.
“She’s trying to remember,” he said finally. His broad shoulders slumped. The frost laden wind whipped streamers of stark white hair across his lined face. Now, more than ever he felt the long ages of his years press on him. Being an elf of either race was not akin to immortality and twelve thousand summers was no little amount time. It was a reminder that he had few enough of those years left. “And she needs to more now than ever, with or without her gods.”
Sesti noted the shadows of grief beneath his eyes. Since his return with the Others three nights before she had kept her tongue still. No more.
“Uncle, why does she need to remember?”
Gabaran glanced at her. She dropped her gaze for a moment, unnerved by the piercing whites at the center of his dark blue eyes. It had been those eyes that had exiled them a thousand years ago. At the young age of four thousand summers at the time, Sesti remembered it well. She had lost her mother, her homeland, and her faith all in one brutal blow.
“Because without her memories I fear we cannot defeat the Dro-Aconi,” he grunted. “Within her mind is knowledge that may help us. The traitor Rodon hinted as much. Yes, she remembers her last hours, Sesti. Those are bad enough. Imagine all you remember is fire and death, pain and torment, the loss, but not knowing who you lost or even why it all happened? She doesn’t even remember her rightful name. She is a gift to our people, to our world, by our god, niece.”
“But what would her memories have to do with the tides of war?” she asked. Her full lips sank into a puzzled frown. “Who is she and what does she have to do with the map?”
“That’s what we need to find out.” He turned his back on the two females, and melted into the dense, snow blanketed forest with no sound to mark his movements.
Sesti bit back a growl of frustration and shot one last look at the motionless woman sitting alone in the snow covered clearing. Finally, she turned on her heel and strode into the forest after her uncle. The answers she sought were as slow in coming as summer.
***
Emaranthe tugged the dark blue cloth closer about her cheekbones with numbed fingers. Damp and cold, she endured the icy pain in silence, her gaze downcast.
“The Four,” her voice cracked, a rusty plea. The words lodged on a lump in her throat. “Hear me in this hour.”
The silence of the snowy field was like a held breath. She swallowed. Why would they heed her prayer now? They never had before.
“I ask for your guidance. What do I do now?”
Silence. Somewhere deep within the surrounding forest a rabbit screamed.
Emaranthe wanted to scream too. Her fingers clenched into gloved fists despite the agony of the movement on the flesh beneath the scars.
It was the pain that had kept her going in the dark years before finding Ivo and Jaeger. A pain she’d reveled in, lost herself to, that kept her alive in a cruel world with silent gods and no memories. Those precious few moments she did remember were no comfort.
She jammed her fists into the elbow deep snow drift and gasped as the chilly shock burned through her sleeves. Unlike the flesh, the destroyed skin within her gloves felt nothing.
The curl of fire, lodged somewhere deep within her souls, flinched and flared. She forced herself to remain still, to feel the cold wetness slowly climbing through her veins where it caged her fiery soul in ice. She needed the cold to remind her how fragile her existence was.
The Four were not the only gods, she reasoned. Light. The Tevu followed Light, the woman who had delivered Emaranthe’s dying body to Gabaran. They believe her to be the one to lead them into the sunlight from a darkness worse than death.
A bitter chuckle escaped her chapped, raw, lips as the cold continued to seep through her clothing. She stood on numbed legs, and turned her face to the cold wind.
Anat.
Home.
Not home. The very place she loved and loathed.
The walk back to the center of the Citadel was silent and cold, just like its inhabitants. She passed through the small door set in the outer curtain wall and slipped into the bailey unseen. Far above, towers, turrets, terraces, and graceful stone bridges climbed the mountainside in shades of gray that easily blended into the frosty sky.
It hadn
’t changed much in nearly four hundred years. She noted some newer doors and re-smithed hinges. Some nicks and scrapes along the stone wall and massive front gate. Larger, sturdier iron braziers lined the walls around the bailey to heat and light in the stark climate.
The Tevu themselves were unchanged. Wary, distant, at best, the few who remembered Emaranthe did little more than cast frowning stares when she crossed their paths. Most everyone else detoured to avoid her. It was like she had never left.
Their numbers were fewer, their faces older. No younglings played in the icy halls or muddy bailey, no new births then. The buzz of every-day work quickly filled the silence as she made her way across the open courtyard. The smithys, the kitchens, masons, and the like all kept their tents and lean-tos against the western wall away from the eastern half where the residences were. Built nearly completely inside the mountain itself, but for the outer walls and ramparts, the Tevu lived within the darker, deeper, reaches of Anat.
The babble and clanks of work faded when she reached the keep. The main entrance to the Citadel interior was heavily guarded, but the watchmen didn’t look down as she stalked into the darkness within.
The great hall was darkened, silent and cold with the heavy stench of stale air and damp stone. Empty. To the left lay the personal rooms of the leader, Gabaran, as well as the healing halls. Emaranthe turned left without thought and tugged the soggy hem of her cloak closer as she made her way into the depths of Anat.
Her boots rapped along the stone. She didn’t bother carrying a lamp to light the way. She knew it by heart.
***
“Will he wake soon?”
The familiar male voice poked at Ivo’s consciousness like a sharp stick. It prodded at him, pulling his mind into a shallower pool of darkness. A faint light rippled and it took a long moment for him to realize it was his vision through his eyelashes. For a split second he wondered if he had Fallen again, but no. He would not be so lucky.
“I’ll do more than wake you bastard,” Ivo mumbled when the narrow faces of Dehil and Jadeth blurred into focus. “You son of a–”
He lunged upright and a searing pain rippled down his right side, hip and leg. The growl of anger turned to one of pain. He stifled it, hid it behind deep breaths and an ashen face. He swayed, but two sets of hands gripped his shoulders and held him upright.
The haze of pain ebbed and clarity returned. His gaze slipped between the pair of elves gripping his shoulders with white knuckled fingers. Their set mouths and grim faces did little to explain why their grips were like iron. They weren’t holding him upright, they were holding him back.
“Where is she?”
“She’s —” Jadeth exhaled the word. Uneasiness turned her sapphire gaze dark. “She’s fine.”
“Where is she, Jadeth?” Ivo asked. He knocked aside their hands with a blast of wind. Dehil’s gaze narrowed on him in a silent warning that he would never have braved before. Ivo glared back and realized that something was very different about their mercurial friend. Dead or alive seemed to have meant little to the immortal spy. He turned to Jadeth, surprised that she tolerated the spy’s presence now more than ever.
“Where is Emaranthe, Jadeth? Tell me.”
“I’m here.”
Ivo twisted toward the sound of her voice and ignored the screaming pain when his barely healed muscles moved. Her soft voice seemed to hover in the darkness to his left. In fact, the edges of the room was oddly devoid of light. He alone sat within a pool of light cast from the large hole in the ceiling.
“Emaranthe? Are you hurt? What are you doing over there?” he asked the shadowed corner of the room. He didn’t imagine the shiver laced exhale.
“I’m fine. It’s you and Jaeger who took the brunt of the explosion,” she whispered. “You saved the rest of us.”
“Jaeger? Where is he?” Ivo asked. He frowned when the shadow in the corner shifted and shivered. “How long was I out?”
“He rests next door. It’s been two days. His injuries were no worse nor better than yours, luckily,” Jadeth said. Her full lips thinned when Ivo continued to twist his battered body on the stone slab the Tevu considered a cot. “Stay still, will you? You will tear the wounds open once more. We will return later.” She led a silent Dehil from the room.
“I gather we’re in the realm of the Exiles,” Ivo said to the room at large as their footsteps faded. He waited and sure enough, a shivery laugh barked from the shadows. He inhaled at the noise, the soft, pained, rage held within a single sound. “What happened, Emaranthe?”
“We survived. And I’ve come home at last.”
“The north. Anat was your home. This is why you never spoke of it, never returned.”
“Only for ten years. I have no people, Ivo.”
“You have me. You have Jadeth, Jaeger. Your home is with us.”
“I know.” She sniffed and stifled a shiver again. The shadows shifted as she stepped into the puddle of light thrown from the oculus above his stone bench. The hand not gripping his side against the throbbing pain reached for her of its own accord.
“Why did you open that portal?” Ivo asked, changing the subject. He scanned the shadowed depths of the hood for any hint of her usual fire and spirit. He noted her dull brown eyes, heavily shadowed in a face pale with exhaustion, and blue-tinged lips. Even her freckles stood out. “You could have died.”
“You would have died. All of you,” she said. Her gaze fell and her breathing hitched. For a brief moment, her impossibly dark lashes grazed her cheeks and stayed shut. She exhaled, shivered, and blinked to clear the tears clinging to them. “And if I have the power to save you, I will use it.”
Ivo’s arm curved around her slight frame and pulled her against his undamaged side. The motion tugged on his wounds, but the feel of her small, softly curved body shivering within her large, damp, cloak sliced an ever sharper pain deep into his chest. He pressed his lips to her forehead. His heart twisted when she wrapped her arms around his middle and pulled herself closer. Her lips met his, gentle yet firm. The twist turned into a spark that caught with a sharp inhale. Her lips were soft–and so cold.
“Why are you wet and shivering?” he asked. Concern etched deep lines at the corners of his eyes. He moved far enough back to study her face in the stark light. His thumb traced her delicate jaw line.
“I– pulled energy too fast after I created the portal,” she said between chattering teeth. Her blue lips pressed shut to still the sound. “Much as the sea rushes in with the tide, so does the power of the sun with I. It is temporary, but I must remember to control my power here. I am a liability to the Tevu.”
Ivo studied her pinched face in the stark light and then the stones interwoven with ice blocks that made the walls and ceiling. He nodded. It wasn’t a complete explanation–the sleeves of her cloak were soaking wet. He would drop the subject, for now.
Chapter Five
The sharp rap of heeled boots on ice and stone caught their attention. Emaranthe swung around and the hood fell back, revealing her damaged hair. Now a blunt bob, pale strands raked the shoulders of her cloak, but the ghostly ribbons of fire were nowhere to be seen.
A female Tevu stalked across the room, her gaze narrowed on Ivo. Her frown was for Emaranthe.
“Who are you?” Ivo asked. His fingers grasped at the hilt of the sword that materialized at his side. “And what—”
Dark blue eyes, familiarly paired with long black hair and pointed ears, narrowed on him. For a split second Ivo wondered if the she-elf could knife him with nothing more than a murderous glare.
Emaranthe wedged herself between them before weapons could be drawn. “Sesti, this is Ivo, son of Veriuc of the eastern kingdom of Saro-shir.”
“Ter-Imand,” Sesti sneered. Her gaze flicked between the two, her dark eyebrows screwed in confusion. “Earthlanders are so odd.”
“What?” Ivo frowned at the female.
“You trade names and titles like they are worth something.” Sesti paced
to Emaranthe and hugged the tiny woman. “Here, my people are all the same. We are Tevu-Anat. Our forefathers and foremothers are our equals.” Bitterness crept into her husky voice.
“Sesti.” Gabaran appeared in the doorway, her name a bark of reproach. “Enough.”
She looked away from Ivo but not before her lips tightened into a line.
Head bowed, she eyed Emaranthe askance.
“Ahe. Anihit ava Tevu-lene.”
Emaranthe nodded, her shoulders slumping. “Sei. Ahe ava-ii Imand-ter?”
With a snort of annoyance, Sesti spun on her heel and marched out of the icy healing hall, Emaranthe’s question unanswered. Gabaran barely had time to step aside or be mowed down. He sighed when the rapid click of heavy boots faded from earshot.
Ivo frowned. “What just happened? What did she say to you?”
“She welcomed me home,” Emaranthe said as her shivering intensified. “And I asked how Jaeger–the other Earthlander– was doing.”
“I will have to watch my back, I see,” Ivo said. He traded glares with Gabaran. “A relative, elf ?”
Gabaran snorted and turned away. He shot them an indecipherable look over his shoulder. “Come. We meet now that you are healed enough. There is much to say.”
Ivo’s gaze homed in on the large elf ’s back. “The map?”
Gabaran froze in the doorway, one wide palm braced against the frame.
His breath fogged the air, the words an exhale of pain.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Ivo asked Emaranthe, but her hood had returned to its place and her gaze remained hidden in the depths.
“You were wounded. Jaeger was wounded. The rest of us barely made it,” she said. Emaranthe followed the elf, leaving Ivo standing at the center of the odd room. “And deciphering the map is the least of our worries.”
Exiles & Empire Page 4
