Exiles & Empire

by Cheryl S Mackey

  Emaranthe felt ill. “What happened then, after your sister and father fought?”

  “The Heart failed. I think the survivors fled into The Void on a ship. They travelled the stars to find a new home. It was too late for me. I could not go with them.”

  “What happened to your sister?”

  Ainoa blinked and tears fell. “I don’t know. I couldn’t find her here. I tried! I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Ainoa, I know!”

  Emaranthe shuddered, but dropped the subject. Ainoa’s father was Rodon…the Dro-Aconi. The very phantom enemy they had been fighting for so long, and he had murdered one daughter and driven another to…

  “Ainoa, one more question? What was your sister’s name?”

  Blood trickled from the dying girl’s mouth when she tried to speak. A gargling bubble and wheeze of agony were the only sounds Ainoa could make. Her knees folded. The candle clattered to the unseen ground.

  Darkness swallowed them.

  Heart pounding, Emaranthe lunged forward and caught her. Together they sank to ground.

  She twisted, her gaze scraping the darkness of The Void for her staff. Scarred fingers reached for it. It sailed into the air and into her outstretched hand and burst into flame. Bathed in the violent golden glow, the darkness shrank away from the fire.

  “Ainoa, my friend is a healer, she can help. Hurry!” Emaranthe cried out. She grabbed at Ainoa’s arms and struggled to tug them both up. She had no idea how she could take the girl back into the real world, gods knew she had no idea how the spelled book had sent her into The Void– but she had to try.

  “No, it’s too late, Emaranthe. It’s too late for me now. I’m long dead. This is nothing more than my soul now. It’s okay.” She coughed. The girl twisted an arm out to the candle, lifted it with shaking hands. How she knew where to find it, Emaranthe couldn’t guess. The candle re-ignited. Shadows danced between them.

  “Remember me.” Fire swirled around the girl’s grey irises, throwing the flickering shadows off her fully, revealing a thin, dirty, ashen face and a nose lightly dusted with a constellation of freckles.

  Recognition sent a jolt through Emaranthe, but before she could form the thought, grasp the memory, it was gone. She blinked, stunned.

  Ainoa lifted the candle and bubbled at the corner of her mouth as she blew.

  “No! Wait! Ainoa! I remember you! How do I know you?!”

  The flame guttered. The stench of blood melded with smoke.

  The emptiness of The Void returned to claim Emaranthe and tears burned instead of fire.

  The Present

  Emaranthe fell silent, the girl’s name a scream cut short. The only sound left in the cold, dark, library was the sound of the wind stirring the air and everyone’s dark thoughts.

  Ivo swallowed. Opened his mouth. Shut it. The wind howled louder, a mirror of his turbulent thoughts.

  “Who is Ainoa?” he asked.

  Emaranthe blinked. Tears, scalding hot, burned on her ashen cheeks.

  “She said she was Rodon’s daughter,” Emaranthe whispered. “But she was familiar. I just can’t remember.”

  Ishelene stiffened, her full lips twisted. Ivo watched pain and panic tighten the corners of her eyes.

  He glared at her. “Ishelene, you know something.”

  “Very well,” Ishelene replied. “I do have some knowledge. That name is familiar. It is not my story to tell, however, but hers.”

  Gabaran, silent and glowering throughout the tale, stiffened.

  “Tanari?” he asked his twin. Dread battled hope for control of his heart.

  “Yes.”

  “How so?” Ivo asked when Gabaran fell silent, despair now in the hard lines of his face.

  “Tanari is Rodon’s twin sister.”

  “How is that possible?” he asked. He shot a look at Gabaran and flinched at the burning pain deep within the older elf’s gaze.

  “Our people were always borne in pairs.” Ishelene gave her brother a sideways look. His jaw flexed but he didn’t speak. “Often times the younger, weaker, twin will die at birth and the surviving one will inherit more power. Sometimes not. But by the time Tanari and Rodon were born as the heirs to the Soldeun Empire, our star had begun to fade. Our power began to diminish. At first, it was not noticeable. But centuries on, by the time they were born, it became apparent that something was wrong.”

  “Centuries?” Jadeth asked.

  “We were long lived, but not Immortal. The irony, right?” She barked a bitter laugh and gestured at her elven ears. “The Four thought they had fixed that particular flaw.”

  “What did the failing of the star do to you?” Ivo asked, honestly curious. His gaze skated between the elven twins. Emaranthe huddled against his side again. Her gaze was wide, brown, and sad. Lost.

  “Children were being born without any abilities at all. That was considered immoral and unclean by our culture.”

  “And Rodon was a crown heir with no powers at all,” Ivo mused. Ishelene nodded and continued.

  “Tanari was born second and survived, but with a very rare and impressive ability, leading Rodon into fits of jealousy from an early age.”

  “WorldWalker,” Gabaran whispered. His gaze took in the four statues downturned faces in earnest interest now. “I don’t know why I know that word.”

  “Yes, she was–is–a Worldwalker. She can travel The Void through space and time and shape the very existence of us all. She has been doing so since the very beginning. Quite possibly she was the only one who knew that something so terrible would happen and sought ways to stop it.”

  “What happened? Is what Emaranthe saw true?” Jadeth asked.

  “Yes that is how our world ended. Ainoa was Rodon’s daughter and Tanari’s niece. She was his heir apparent to the throne.”

  “Why didn’t you say any of this before?” Ivo asked. “What about this sister Emaranthe mentioned?”

  Ishelene’s lips thinned and her gaze hardened. She would speak no more of it.

  Silence reigned for a long, tense moment.

  “For what it is worth, Ivo, I am sorry. I truly cannot say more.” Ishelene grimaced, not looking at him nor Emaranthe.

  “Now what?” Jaeger asked. “We lack answers and truth, but our quest stills stands.”

  “It does, brother,” Ivo said after a long moment. He released Emaranthe and gripped her gloved hand instead. “Care to share what have we found, Sesti and Jadeth?”

  Sesti frowned at her mother, but reluctantly nodded.

  Jadeth explained, “The scrap of the map is very vague and marked in a language we could not read. The orb atop.” She pointed to the nearly invisible metal object towering high above. “Appears to be a representation of our entire world. We found one place that shares similar features, but there is no guarantee that is where we will find The Crown of Gods.”

  Ishelene and Gabaran nodded simultaneously, their faces twin studies of grim contemplation. Jadeth shivered and continued.

  “Emaranthe has offered to try to teleport us there.”

  Gabaran’s head whipped around, his growl of denial short and swift.

  “No.”

  Emaranthe stiffened and released Ivo’s painfully tight grip. Her glare literally burned as she swung around to face her adoptive big brother.

  “No? There is no other way, big brother,” she snapped. “I’m the only one here who can do so.”

  “You can’t be sure you will be able to reach it. You’ve never been there.”

  “I can and I will do. I have to,” she said. Her hood tumbled away, freeing her pale hair. Embers stirred between the golden strands to match the anger in her eyes.

  “There must be another way,” Jaeger added before Emaranthe could accidently torch Gabaran. She could almost feel the heat waves emanating from the furious mage. “How else can we travel such a distance?”

  “A portal.” Dehil slipped from the shadows to stand beside Jadeth. “What about a regular portal?”

>   “I cannot travel by Immortal portals,” Gabaran barked. He cut off Ishelene’s reply before she could open her mouth.

  “You think you cannot, brother, but what if you can?” she asked after trading a frustrated glance with Ivo and Jadeth. “How do you know you cannot?”

  Gabaran glanced away, his shoulders slumped.

  “Because I tried once. I tried to enter The Unknown City. I wanted to see if you were okay. Once, long ago. I had also hoped Emaranthe had made it there after she had left Anat.”

  “Okay, we need a plan then,” Dehil said. All but one pair of eyes traveled to where he hovered at the edge of the firelight.

  Jadeth’s ears flicked as Dehil spoke, his familiar voice washing over her like a blanket of familiarity. Her gaze turned to the tome lying innocently on the stone hands as something caught her attention. A word, in charred black slashed across the plain leather cover almost too quickly to catch.

  A word, a single word.

  A name.

  Jadeth

  Her hand reached for the book of its own volition. Her fingers grazed the corner.

  A howl of agony wrenched from her lips as everything spun into darkness.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Void ~ Jadeth

  Everything faded into shades of gray as if the color was leaching into the darkness, much like a winter dawn. A cold white fog, damp and heavy, seethed along the snowy ground at her feet. Goosebumps rose on Jadeth’s flesh and the icy chill that seeped through her chain link tunic and leggings was as real as anything she’d ever felt.

  “What’s going on?” she called out to the graying nothingness. She turned in a rapid circle. The snow crunched beneath her boots, ankle deep. She stumbled, slid, and righted herself, feeling lost in the swirling, cold fog.

  “Hello?” Her voice echoed plaintively off stone. The cold turned her breath frosty and her teeth chattered. She clamped her jaw shut and squinted into the blanketing mist for…anything.

  “Where am I?”

  A wind ripped into her, slapping her face with icy needles and tearing her hair into a scarlet banner. The ragged ties corralling the braids vanished into the blinding flurries, lost.

  The gust of wind brought an even colder chill with it, but it also swept away much of the fog. Jadeth realized, with a shiver, that it was not fog, but clouds…and she was high in a small clearing on a mountainside.

  The wind howled relentlessly, forcing Jadeth to search for shelter. She turned in a circle again and surveyed the mountain peak far above. Her nose burned from the icy air, as did her ear tips. She wished for a massive hooded cloak like Emaranthe’s. Instead she had to wrap her arms about herself and search for cover…or help.

  Her precarious position on the mountain was baffling. Why would the book send her to this place? There had to be a reason. She scanned the small, rocky clearing for clues.

  The clearing was barely that, nothing but a rocky hollow between a steeply forested mountainside and a sheer drop off bookended by towering boulders.

  She forced her feet to move. The giant boulders would have to do for shelter until she could figure out what in The Four the book thought this had to do with her. She sank into a crouch in the most sheltered spot she could find. A small patch of snow collected at the base of the boulder, but the wind seemed to have shifted to another direction leaving her out of its nasty bite. Numbed fingers clutched the ice cold handle of the hammer.

  She waited.

  ***

  Jadeth squinted into the gray fog and struggled to judge the time of day. This high into the mountains the sunlight was weak at best, despite having two suns, and but for the large boulders she huddled behind, there was little else to tell time by. She squirmed into a less painful position, her left shoulder wedged deep into the crevice where the spire of rock merged with the spine of the mountain ridge. The other boulder’s shadow traced a faint path at a sharp angle.

  “Late afternoon,” Jadeth muttered to the sleet laden wind. Even as she spoke the shadow faded, leaving only the snow swept clearing and two massive pillars of stone for company. And the wind, of course.

  A sound rose over the howling wind, catching her attention. Ears perked, she struggled to identify the noise and, more importantly, the location. The sounds were muffled, distant, but rose and fell in a low toned pitch.

  Voices. And more than one of them.

  Jadeth reached for the hammer she’d propped into the crevice and stood. She ignored the stiffening of her limbs and closed her eyes.

  The sounds grew closer, more recognizable, but not understandable. She focused on the words and though they seemed only whispers in the wind, she let her ears do all the work. She turned on the spot, honing in on their approach with a flick of one long ear.

  Hammer readied, she waited in the shadows of the lee of one giant boulder. The flurries of snow made visibility poor, but out of the white washed gloom two figures appeared higher up on the spine of the mountain. The figures had no trouble traversing the precarious path down and no problems with the icy cold or snow. These two were familiar with this odd location.

  The snow flurries subsided just as the pair reached the tiny clearing. Laughing and huffing, bundled in layers of cloaks, leggings, and packs, they halted.

  Jadeth wedged herself deeper into the crevice. Their voices were now clear and high pitched. Females. They stood with their backs to the boulders, talking animatedly. Jadeth watched as the two females started to shift their gear and tug off cloaks and packs.

  The closest tossed her hood back, revealing a long indigo braid interwoven with strands of auburn. Sharp ears poked from the top and twitched when Jadeth gasped out loud. She knew that hair, knew those ears.

  The other one halted, her own hood half lowered. Wary eyes scanned the clearing before lighting on her companion. Her hood fell free, revealing elven ears and hair even redder than hers, but Jadeth had only eyes for the darker haired elf.

  It couldn’t be, could it?

  “Did you hear something, Esbetha?” The red headed elf turned and scanned the clearing, her sharp blue gaze somehow skipping past Jadeth hidden deep in the shadows.

  Esbetha frowned and studied the shadows ringing the clearing. A sharp gust of wind whipped her cloak into the air.

  “I can only hear the wind,” Esbetha said. “I thought she was to be here by now.”

  Esbetha? Jadeth’s heart twisted. Be here? Her? She clutched at her chest with both hands as the pain became one of hollow anguish. The hammer fell with a dull crack against the snow swept ground and both females froze at the sound.

  “Mother?” Jadeth whimpered. The word was lost in the howling wind and for a heartbreaking moment the snow laden air turned the world into a white haze.

  Jadeth stumbled away from the protective crevice and cried out. “Mother! Mother! It’s me!”

  The snap of wings drowned out her cry and turned the sleet laden wind into a blizzard. A figure dropped from the sky, heavily shadowed beneath widespread wings. Jadeth jumped backwards to avoid the sharp fringe of feathers that swiped the air inches from her face. She crouched, stunned, as the Windwalker stood and struggled to fold giant white wings.

  A Windwalker? Jadeth eyed the newcomer with a frown. The race of the winged people had fallen hard and fast beneath the Dro-Aconi’s cruel rage from the very beginning. Jadeth had only ever before seen Atil, and he was not overly fond of anyone.

  This Windwalker, an Immortal, was different, powerful. Even more so then Atil perhaps. She radiated energy somewhat like the Dro-Aconi had done as the StormWarden, but an energy of calm, peace, and hope. Goosebumps raced up Jadeth’s arms. She rubbed them through her chainmail tunic and slunk deeper into the frosty shadows.

  “Mareva, what’s wrong?” Esbetha lunged for the Windwalker when she only continued to stand, swaying and silent, her wings askew.

  At her words Mareva collapsed. Wings and lean limbs tangled, she sagged into Esbetha’s arms without a sound.

  “Mareva! Oh
gods, Jawyna, help her!” Esbetha gasped. Shaking fingers smoothed aside russet colored curls, baring the Windwalker’s ashen face and blue lips.

  The red headed elf sank to her knees beside the injured Windwalker.

  “Mareva, talk to us. What happened?” Jawyna asked. She searched the sprawled limbs for wounds but her fingers came up blood free. “Mareva?”

  “They’re gone.” Mareva whispered.

  Jawyna and Esbetha traded worried looks.

  “They?” Jawyna asked. Her hands roamed Mareva’s legs and torso, her fingers quick and skilled.

  “We did it, Jawyna. All of Orin-Iad has been saved. They are safe now.”

  “You did it then? Maybe some good will come of this war at last,” Esbetha said. She held Mareva’s hand and watched Jawyna work. “Where is your brother and the Worldwalker then?”

  “Gone.”

  “What do you mean? Where did they go?” Jawyna reached the nearest snow white wing with her steady fingers and Mareva flinched with a hiss. Esbetha exhaled, horrified, her attention now on the Windwalker’s large, beautiful wings.

  “How, Mareva? Who did this?” Jawyna asked, her earlier question forgotten.

  Jadeth leaned out of the shadows, unable to see what had drained the color from their faces, leaving them colorless in an all pale world.

  It took a long moment of squinting for Jadeth to understand. The Windwalker, Mareva, had flown to the tiny clearing atop this mountain on shattered wings.

  Her fingers twitched around the grip of the icy cold hammer, the urge to help the broken woman overriding her need to hide. She actually took a full step into the fading light, away from the rock formation, and started to lift the hammer when the other red headed elf, Jawyna, did exactly the same thing.

  As if mirroring Jadeth, Jawyna reached for something at the shadows of her back and retrieved the last thing Jadeth had ever expected to see. A hammer. Her hammer. The hammer she now clutched to her chest in mute shock.

  She whispered, “My hammer.”

  The three females didn’t hear her, or perhaps couldn’t over the constant howls of the wind and rasp of the snow. Or, Jadeth wondered, if this was an intangible illusion. She was obviously still within the book. But where was she and why had it shown her this?