“Is not your fault,” she repeated.
Suli said nothing, of course. Her arms, however, tightened ever so slightly around his middle.
***
They found the younger Lucasta and the rest of the trow shortly before dawn. That they managed to find them by moonlight alone was frankly miraculous, even with Rhona’s supernatural gaze. The pleasure of their fortuitous reunion was spoiled in a matter of seconds.
Gilla’s grief had been subdued by necessity but the younger sister’s cry upon spotting her mother was anything but. The sound of it covered the nape of Elias’ neck in gooseflesh and he dismounted swiftly, turning away from the mourning sisters. Once grounded, he reached up to offer Suli his hand, but the ambrosian did not take it. She dropped heavily from the saddle, landed in a deep crouch, and stalked away from both him and the trow.
Elias started after her then paused when Suli did. Satisfied that she was not planning to flee into the early morning gloom, he turned back to the others. Avans, Kyra, and Rhona had not gone far. Each lingered close, busying themselves with stretching or, in Kyra’s case, fervently rubbing the warmth back into her arms. And each, at his gaze, looked up expectantly.
“Gilla is safe,” he said softly. “That debt is paid. So? What now?”
“Could ride back to Islesmark,” Avans suggested. He gestured at the famos’ tightly laced saddlebags. “I checked on the provisions. There’s not much, but it should last at least a fortnight if we’re careful. That’s long enough to reach the frontier villages.”
“For all the good it’ll do us,” Kyra muttered sourly. “It’s only a few days’ march to the sea. If Tereus has ships waiting, he could sail his army to Islesmark before we reach it.”
“It’s better than standing here tugging on our pricks!” Avans snapped.
“It is better than nothing,” Elias said, before either of the two could escalate the argument. “But who’s to say that Offert would take our word for it? We’ve learned nothing important! Nothing he can use to prepare our defenses, at least. Tereus is alive and Cotora is dead—wonderful. How large is the elven army? When will they leave Dan Tien? Where will they attack first?”
Rhona cleared her throat. It was a delicate interruption but unusual enough that Elias paused and looked at her. The Gwydas was frowning.
“I can look?” she asked. “The army must train near Dan Tien. If I look each day, I may see.”
“You can do that?” Elias asked, incredulous. “I thought you needed to know what you’re looking for. Like with Gilla and Cotora.”
Rhona’s frown softened to a self-conscious smile. “To see detail, yes. But I see much of Dan Tien. An army is not small, not fast. It does not hide.” She shrugged. “It is not much, but something.”
“Thank you,” Elias said earnestly. “But is there a limit to how far you can see? How far west can we ride before…?”
Again, Rhona shrugged. “Far west I see less detail,” she said. “But Dan Tien is large. I see much for many days.”
“That settles it then,” Elias said. He paused, fidgeting, as a resurgent wave of weeping reached them. “We’ll, ah, ride for Islesmark soon. Rhona are you, ah, willing to come with us?”
The Gwydas’ smile vanished.
“I cannot return to Eh’kaavi,” she reminded him. “Your home is safer than to be alone. For now, I come with you.”
“Well… thank you. I’ll talk to Suli as well and see if she…” Elias trailed off. He felt strangely drained in a manner more mental than physical. The very idea of planning—scheming, really—made him want to sleep where he stood.
Unfortunately, Avans did not appear to share his weariness.
“What about the trow?” he asked.
Elias sighed, glancing over his shoulder at Gilla and the rest. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It would be nice if they decide to come with us. But after what happened….”
“I’ll talk to Gilla,” Kyra suggested. “Maybe I can convince her.”
He nodded gratefully, too exhausted to smile. It suddenly occurred to him how pleasant it would be to lie down, swallow a mouthful of gano, and close his eyes. But, since one was impossible and another impractical, he settled for simply shutting his eyes.
“Thank you, Kyra,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
When Elias woke some time later, the minutes that followed his conversation were a blur. He remembered speaking with Avans, discussing a handful of logistical concerns for the journey back to Islesmark. He remembered looking around for Suli and being unable to find her. And he dimly remembered sitting down to rest his legs for a moment.
He definitely did not recall finding his way to a sleeping pallet or drifting off, but both of those must have occurred judging by where he found himself upon waking.
Dawn had fully arrived and the glare was bright in his eyes. The sun was still low on the horizon, however, so he couldn’t have slept more than a couple of hours. He certainly didn’t feel rested, but neither could he bring himself to drift off again.
Wincing at the ache in his thighs and lower back, Elias rose. Kyra and the others slept around him on pallets of their own or dew-sprinkled cloaks. Several of the trow rested as well, those who’d accompanied them to Dan Tien by their garments. The remaining trow sat around the ashes of a long-dead fire. They were not speaking, but several of their number glanced over as Elias stood, including the female who cradled the younger Lucasta against her chest. She might almost have been sleeping if not for the way her hands remained clenched into anguished fists.
The sight was so painfully distracting that Elias nearly overlooked Suli. The ambrosian sat a dozen paces removed from the small circle of trow, knees folded against her chest and her chin resting against the tops. She was utterly motionless apart from the idle, wavelike motion of her slender tail and the barely noticeable pattern of her breathing.
She was not looking at the trow. For a second, Elias thought she might have been studying the horizon. Then he spotted Gilla.
The trow stood by herself some thirty paces beyond the approximate edge of camp. She, like the rest, was as still and silent as a bronzed idol.
Elias made his way toward her without the slightest clue what he planned to say. He half-expected Suli to try and stop him, as she had before, but the ambrosian did not even glance at him. And so, chewing the inside of his cheek, he continued.
Lucasta’s grave was fresh enough that he spotted it immediately. There was no marker or headstone, but from the way Gilla stared down at the spot, Elias knew that she had long since committed the sight to memory. She didn’t speak or acknowledge him, but neither did she rebuff his presence.
Elias held his tongue for a long time, several minutes at least, until the silence grew so heavy he felt he might drown.
“Your mother was incredible,” he said at last. “Especially at the gate. I thought we were dead for sure.”
Gilla did not respond and Elias’ stomach instantly coiled into knots at his choice of words. He opened his mouth to continue, or perhaps to apologize, but the trow silenced him with a soft exhalation.
“She was,” Gilla said simply.
The grim double meaning gave him pause and he studied Gilla’s face from the corner of his eye, hunting for some clue to her thoughts. He found none.
“Did Kyra speak with you?” he asked.
Again, came the pause.
“About leaving? She did.”
“We’re less than a day from Dan Tien,” Elias continued gently. “I know this is a bad time, but—”
Gilla barked a feral laugh, so harsh and wild that it made the hair on Elias’ arms stand on end. He turned slightly and found both Suli and the trow watching him.
“A bad time?” Gilla hissed, whirling to face him. Her voice was quiet but dripping with contempt. “What can you know of it, kabkue? My mother is dead! Barneis is dead! Do you think I care in the slightest what happens now?”
The veno
m in her words cut like a knife but Elias merely blinked. A deep, spiteful part of him bristled but he pushed the feeling aside with ease. He recognized the pain lurking behind Gilla’s words too intimately to fall for such a thing.
“I know all of it,” he said. “I know exactly what you’re feeling.”
“Like fuck you do!”
Pulling back his cloak, Elias grasped the hilt of his sword. The act drew a cry of alarm from one of the seated trow but he didn’t so much as twitch. Gilla, however, stared at him in shock.
“My father died fighting Tereus when I was ten years old,” he growled. “My wife killed herself two years ago. You think I wouldn’t have slaughtered a hundred—a thousand people to bring either one of them back? Do you know how often I thought about joining them? How often I prayed to? How many nights I thought about falling on this very sword?”
He pulled the blade free of its scabbard and tossed it to the ground at Gilla’s feet.
“You can do it if you want. I won’t stop you,” he said. “But, if you come with us, you can help avenge them. It won’t bring Barneis back. Or your mother. But it is something.”
Gilla stared at him. She didn’t break eye contact, even when she flicked her wrist to dismiss the trow who’d rushed to save her. Then, slowly, she bent down to retrieve the sword. She held it thoughtfully, running her thumb gingerly against the mediocre edge.
“You never mentioned what happened to your wife before,” she said at last.
“It’s not something I talk about.”
“Why?”
Elias sighed and looked away. “Because it was my fault,” he admitted. From the corner of his eye, he could see Gilla’s unwavering stare and sighed again. “I was young and ambitious. I had my heart set on becoming an alderman—a sort of high-ranking official. Catherine was the Governor-General’s niece. And when it looked like I might fail, she asked her uncle to help. My rivals found out about it and started rumors that made things ten times worse. I… I blamed her for it. Accused her of going behind my back. I told her it was her fault that I’d failed. We hadn’t spoken in almost a fortnight when she… when it happened.”
Gilla was still staring when he finally met her gaze again. Her expression had softened somewhat in the interim, however. Then, without warning, she turned the sword in her hands. For the briefest instant, Elias thought she meant to use it on herself.
Forcing the faintest hint of a smile, Gilla offered him the blade, hilt-first. He accepted it, relieved, and slid it back into its scabbard.
“We’ll go with you. For now, at least,” she said, turning back to the grave. “Like you said, it’s something.”
“Thank you.”
Gilla’s eyes narrowed but not in anger.
“No,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Elias’ fear of pursuit dwindled in proportion to the distance between them and Dan Tien. After the first full day of uneventful riding, he ceased to glance over his shoulder every few minutes. By the third, he calmed to the point that no longer looked at all, except during their brief pauses and when cresting a particularly prominent ridge or hilltop.
On the fourth, shortly before dusk, they dared a small fire.
It was almost astonishing how drastically a few crackling twigs and crumbling branches improved the collective mood. The weather had been warm and dry, if somewhat chilly after sundown, but Elias never would have guessed from the way the group crowded around the well-concealed, nearly smokeless blaze.
The trow still treated Gilla and her sister with a tender deference and made room for them to take the warmest spots. Avans, Kyra, and Rhona stood nearby as well. Without the elder Lucasta’s steadying presence, the trow regarded the Gwydas with a touch more suspicion than they had previously, but Rhona maintained her distance in both riding and conversation and so there had not been any conflict thus far.
The most surprising reaction, however, was Suli. Elias was surprised, given the ambrosian’s unnaturally warm equilibrium, but the trow had scarcely managed to light the kindling when she raced forward to crouch alongside the briskly catching leaves. She had no eyes for anyone else, only the fire, and watched it almost reverently with wide, ever-golden eyes. Even once the fire had spread to the sturdier logs and branches, she continued to feed it, tossing blades of dried grass and finger-length twigs onto the pile at regular intervals.
Elias stood back a ways, listening to two of the eldest trow converse and trying to translate what they said. He grasped enough to piece together they were reminiscing about the late Lucasta, but the nuances of their quiet discussion were lost on him. Even so, between them and Suli’s apparent fire-fascination, he was distracted enough that he nearly missed it when Rhona slipped away.
He spotted her before she’d gone far and watched for a moment, expecting her to veer toward the relative privacy of a few nearby trees. Instead, she turned the opposite direction and climbed a gently sloping hill. Frowning slightly, Elias followed her.
She stopped near the top of the hill and was far enough away that Elias couldn’t hear her prayer, but he recognized what she was doing by the way she stretched out her arms. He stopped short some twenty paces away, not wanting to interrupt, and turned instead to gaze westward. The sun was low on the horizon and warmed the rolling hills with a rich, amber glow. The terrain was not all that different from that near Islesmark—only a bit less rocky—and filled him with an unwelcome sense of nostalgia.
For once, he didn’t push the feeling down.
He’d enjoyed such vistas plenty of times with Catherine. Thanks in part to her religious leanings, she’d frequently dragged him from their bed for early morning hikes into the hills north and east of the city. And, despite his grumbling, he’d accompanied her. He hadn’t much cared for the early hour or the incense she’d elected to burn as the sun rose, but the views had been pleasant enough. And the sun-kissed lovemaking they’d enjoyed afterward even more so.
Elias smiled before he knew what he was doing and stifled a gasp when he realized it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d savored a pleasant memory of Catherine without the accompanying guilt, grief, or pain. Not when awake, at least. Dreams were one thing and the sharp, breath-stealing realization when he woke made such things unwelcome.
And yet, here he was, grinning to himself. He might have wept from relief had Rhona not pierced the silence with a harsh, muffled curse. She whirled, took one urgent step down the hill, and froze at the sight of him.
Elias’ memories, pleasant or otherwise, fled in an instant.
“Trouble?” he asked, hurrying forward. His hand, unthinkingly, settled on the hilt of his sword.
“No… yes?” Rhona said, glancing over her shoulder. She fidgeted, drawing her cloak tight around her shoulders. “I look at Dan Tien. There are many soldiers. Many. They walk through the gate. I see many tents, famos. Army, I fear.”
“How many?” he demanded. “Where are they going? What direction, I mean.”
Rhona shrugged helplessly. “I see many hundreds. They walk so I cannot count. I see our gate, but… where they go after, I…” She trailed off and shrugged again.
Elias nodded slowly and grimaced. If the elves were mustering outside the western gate, perhaps that meant they planned to march that direction. It was too soon to know for certain, of course. The west gate might simply have been the most convenient spot to gather. But, if they were, it meant he might have the chance to warn any villages or plantations they passed on their way back to Islesmark. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“Check on them as often as you can,” he said. “Try and find out what direction they’re marching. You can do that, right? Now that you’ve seen them?”
“Yes? Some.” Rhona gestured to the sun, then pressed a palm to her cheek, her brow, and then the back of her head. “South, east, west. I see little else, but I see Falass’ light.”
“Excellent. Thank you.”
Elias paced, struggling to work through the possibilities. If the elves were to march west immediately, Islesmark and the rest would have very little time to prepare. He didn’t know how rapidly the elven forces could move but it seemed unlikely that their entire host would be mounted. If the majority were, they might only have a few days’ warning. But, if the bulk of the army was on foot, they might have weeks before it reached the frontier.
He turned back to where the group huddled around the fire. Their voices were a distant, indistinct hum, but he could hear the good-natured tone throughout. One of them—Avans, he thought—was even laughing. And now, it was his job to spoil the mood.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
As expected, the smiles and laughter faded as he rejoined the circle and broke the news. Elias was particularly aware of Gilla’s expression as the trow abruptly looked up at his revelations. Her weary, largely emotionless shell didn’t change, but the storm of vengeful determination in her eyes was enough to make him briefly stumble over his words.
“We’ll sleep in the saddle when we can,” she announced, the instant Elias’ report was finished. “The famos prefer a group so we don’t need to worry about them wandering off or falling behind. The less time we spend making camp, the sooner we’ll reach your people.”
“The famos need rest, too,” he pointed out.
Gilla scoffed and glanced derisively at the grazing beasts. “Hardly,” she said. “They belonged to Tereus. This is probably the laziest they’ve been since they were born.”
Elias didn’t know what to say to that. And, since there was little to be gained from arguing with Gilla on matters he knew very little about, he let the matter drop. His silence, however, only made it easier for Rhona to intrude.
“There are villages,” she said, eyeing Elias and Gilla in turn. “Many on coast, some on rivers. We ride close to them. Tereus takes many elves as soldiers. As Gwydas, I may take them first? Many will not come but some will believe and fear war. Less soldiers for Tereus is good, yes?”
Ambassador (Conqueror of Isles Book 1) Page 20
