“It was Gwylor, the god of death, who finally defeated the Great Betrayer and his followers. They were cornered and bound, stripped of their names and powers—they are known simply as the Fallen Ones now. Gwylor imprisoned them for eternity in the deepest, darkest realm of the otherworlds.”
Usually Reyker lay quietly, but sometimes he repeated a word, asking questions with his eyes. Now, he looked up and whispered, “Aillira?”
“Yes,” I answered, “Gwylor captured Aillira. She repented, begging forgiveness, pleading for the lives of her children. Mercifully, the gods spared them, but Aillira couldn’t live with what she’d done. She went mad and died from the bite of a bog adder she found in her garden. She kissed it, mistaking the serpent for her husband returning to her in animal form.”
At some point in my stories, I always glanced down to find Reyker sleeping. When the tension in his jaw loosened and the shadows haunting his expression softened, he looked vulnerable. It was difficult to see him as an enemy.
Before stealing back to the village each night, I tucked the blankets around Reyker, brushing my fingertips along the black flames of his warrior-mark, praying I wasn’t wrong about him. Praying I wouldn’t someday regret saving his life.
“Have you decided yet?” Ishleen asked.
“Hmm?” I glanced up from the tome of ancient poetry. Ishleen and I sat by the hearth in my father’s library, reading and conversing and drinking tea, a thing we did most evenings when Father and my brothers were away, occupied with clan business.
“About whether or not to pledge yourself to Aillira’s Temple?”
“Not yet.” It was a question I’d mulled over constantly since finding Reyker in the harbor, wondering if there was more I could do for him, some way to ease his discomfort with my abilities. But my only way of finding answers was to give up my freedom and be confined to dusty classrooms, abandon my life in Stony Harbor and devote myself to the gods.
“I wish I could study at the temple,” Ishleen said. She couldn’t, because only the god-gifted were allowed, and for each clan descended from Aillira, the gods only blessed one girl per generation. “There are potion masters there. And I heard they teach the Forbidden Scriptures.”
“What? Where did you hear that?” I knew little of the Forbidden Scriptures—the contested accounts of our island’s history—but I’d heard whispers. They were contrary to the Immortal Scriptures. Two versions of the same story, different as night and day.
“When we visited the temple as children. Everyone was distracted while the priestesses tested your abilities.”
I remembered it well. I’d been exhausted and annoyed by all the questioning and examining I’d been put through. Ishleen was jealous, but I’d have gladly traded places with her. I often wished I could trade places with her now. What a relief it would have been to be skilled without being god-gifted, to have an ability that belonged to me and not to my entire clan.
Ishleen continued. “I slipped away to explore. One of the priestesses followed me. She took me aside and told me …”
“What?” I sat up straighter. “What did she tell you?”
There were no copies of the Forbidden Scriptures left; they’d all been burned after the Gods’ War. But in certain circles, the stories had been conveyed from one person’s lips to another’s ear, passed down through generations. In clan Stone, even speaking of the banned verses was considered blasphemous.
Ishleen craned her neck, peering into the hall to ensure we were alone. “The Forbidden Scriptures said that it was not Aillira and the Great Betrayer who brought about the Gods’ War, but Gwylor himself.”
I inhaled sharply.
“The Immortal Scriptures erased the Great Betrayer’s name from its pages, but some still remember—Veronis, he was called.”
“Veronis,” I repeated. The sound was like a chord struck on a harp.
“According to the Forbidden Scriptures, when Gwylor saw the love between Aillira and Veronis, he grew envious. He tried to seduce Aillira, but she spurned him. Gwylor did not want anyone, especially a lesser god, to have what he could not. So he began the Gods’ War to destroy Veronis and steal Aillira for himself.” She paused for dramatic effect.
“Go on,” I said. “Finish the story.”
“After he defeated Veronis and his followers, banishing them to the prison-realm, Gwylor forced Aillira to be his mistress. He took her children away, turned them against her. When he tired of her, Gwylor cast her aside. She took her own life out of grief.”
The tome fell from my lap, thumping noisily to the floor. “So Gwylor is either a hero or a villain. How are we to know which version is true?”
“I asked the priestess that same question. She said, ‘You must ask the gods, both the victors and the defeated. Listen with your heart. The truth will open within you like a blossom to the sun.’ ”
“Bloody fates.” For several moments, the only sound was the crackle of the fire. “Ishleen, we visited the temple ten years ago. Why didn’t you tell me of all this sooner?”
She leaned forward and took a sip of her tea, her hands trembling. “I forgot. As soon as it ended, it was as if my conversation with the priestess was wiped from my mind. But I had a dream the night the frost giants washed up in the harbor. In the dream, you and I stood together on a cliff as a flock of lammergeiers circled us. When I woke, I remembered what the temple’s priestess told me. I’ve had the same dream every night since.” She placed her shaking hands in her lap, studying them. “It’s an omen. Something dreadful is coming.”
This was a side to Ishleen I wasn’t used to. Of the two of us, she was usually the sensible, dependable one. She wasn’t the kind of girl to let a nightmare trouble her.
I clasped Ishleen’s fidgeting hands. “Only a Daughter of Aillira can dream of omens. Your dreams mean nothing.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “The priestess said something else. That if I truly wanted to know more about Veronis, I had to seek the blind mystic.”
“The seeress?” She was the Great Betrayer’s most devoted vassal. She not only worshipped the Fallen Ones, she guarded the portal to their prison-realm. “If you want answers, we’ll track her down together.” Ishleen had been at my side through many of my reckless escapades. I owed her this much. And unlike many of the villagers, I was more curious about the mystic than I was frightened.
“Lira, we can’t! The mystic is mad. She’ll try to ensnare us with her visions.” Ishleen pursed her lips. “You don’t actually think we should go see her, do you?”
It hurt to see Ishleen unsettled, so I cocked my head and said, “Aye, let’s ride like the wind into the Tangled Forest seeking the mad mystic who guards the Grove of the Fallen Ones. While we’re there, maybe I’ll chop off my toes as an offering and beg the Fallen Ones to make me a charmed dancer.” I poked her in the ribs. “How daft do you think me?” I stretched down to retrieve my book of poetry from where it had fallen on the floor.
Ishleen swatted at me, a grin easing the tension in her face. “You truly want me to answer?”
I lifted the tome as if to throw it, and she squealed and ducked.
The door to the antechamber opened, followed by the sounds of my brothers clomping through the cottage, calling my name.
“What are you two chattering about?” Garreth asked, leaning in the doorway. He was convinced Ishleen and I were always up to no good. He was often right.
“How brave and clever my brothers are.” I smiled sweetly.
Rhys snorted, pushing past Garreth to scan the library’s shelves. “Let’s have a story, eh?”
Garreth folded his arms. “Lira, what’s that frayed rope around your neck?”
My hand went to the cord Reyker had been wearing my medallion on when I took it from him. I’d meant to replace the rope with a proper silver chain; I’d even walked to the silversmith’s cottage earlier today,
but then stopped. I wasn’t quite sure why. “I found Mother’s medallion,” I said, lifting it from inside my bodice.
My brothers stared at the medallion, this small piece of our mother we’d thought was lost.
Before they could ask, I said, “It was in a corner at the back of my wardrobe. I must’ve dropped it.”
Garreth raised a brow. He had a knack for sensing my lies, but he said nothing more.
Rhys grabbed a book. “Move over, Lir.” He settled himself in front of the hearth between me and Ishleen, flipping through pages. “I’m bloody tired of hearing about frost giants. Ah, here’s an old Bog Men legend.”
“Bog Men,” Garreth muttered. “Mercenary half-breeds, tainted with foreign blood. They have no loyalty to our country. I don’t understand why Father insists on treating with them, doling out shares of our profits to those barbarians.”
It chilled me how much Garreth sounded like Madoc sometimes.
“Barbarians or not, they spin a good tale,” Rhys said.
I listened vaguely as Rhys read about foolhardy travelers lured deep into the bogs by glowing green lights, only to sink into the lair of the venom-spitter—a monster who was half-woman, half-serpent, and delighted in swallowing men whole.
But my mind kept wandering to other stories—those from the Forbidden Scriptures, with their starkly different interpretations of Gwylor, Aillira, and the Great Betrayer. Veronis.
How much of what I’d been taught to believe was built upon lies?
The next afternoon, I was working in the stables, so absorbed in picking pebbles from a horse’s hoof that I didn’t hear someone enter the stall. The sudden tug on my braid would’ve startled me, had the teasing gesture not been so familiar.
“That’s how you greet a lady?” I asked, wiping my hands on my smock. “I should command the horse to trample you. Or gut you with my pick.” I turned and brandished the tool.
Quinlan stooped to one knee, holding a butter-colored daylily. “A thousand pardons, Lady Lira. Forgive your humble servant.” He peered around me at the sable-coated mare. “I meant no offense. Please, gentle creature, have mercy.”
“Get up, you jackanapes.” I put the pick away and snatched the flower from his fingers.
“Tell me how much you’ve missed me.”
I stroked the lily’s sun-warmed petals. “Not a whit.”
The young man who stood before me now was a handsome highborn warrior of Fion, the clan that ruled the neighboring village of Houndsford. But once, many years ago, Quinlan had been a rude lad who taunted me, ripping the ribbons from my hair, until I tired of it and punched him hard enough to blacken his eye and earn his undying respect.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look weary.”
Tending to my warrior and worrying after Dyfed’s family made for restless nights. Only one was safe to speak of. “There was an execution.”
“Garreth told me. I can help.”
I waved a hand at him. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“I could marry you.”
I leaned against the horse to steady myself. “Quinlan. I refused your first proposal. Did you think the second would be different?”
“No. I’m betting on the third.” He regarded me with soft eyes, so dark they were nearly black. “If you married me, I’d never let anyone use you for your gift. You’d never have to be anyone’s judge. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
The offer was tempting—to never condemn another person. For my gift to be my own.
“I care for you, Quinlan. You’re as dear to me as a brother.”
“I’m not your brother.”
His tone surprised me. “I’m aware.”
“Are you?”
Quinlan was comely. He made me laugh. I felt safe with him. Most marriages were based on far less—landholdings, lineages, alliances.
“I have to think of my brothers, my father,” I said.
“They know I’m trustworthy, that I’d protect and cherish you as few men could. Houndsford is close enough for you to visit them often. I’ll bring you back to Stony Harbor whenever you wish. Please don’t reject me and place the blame on your family. If you feel nothing for me, you must say it. I’d rather lose my pride than hold to false hopes.”
Lira, wife of Quinlan—I didn’t hate the idea. I feared it. I didn’t want to leave my home. I didn’t want to be any man’s property. And there was still the possibility of joining Aillira’s Temple. When it came to pledging myself to Quinlan or the temple, I wasn’t ready to choose one and lose the other forever.
“I can’t say I feel nothing, only that I’ve no wish to marry yet.”
“Well. Until you can better dissuade me, I suppose I must keep asking.” Quinlan smoothed a hand along my braid, drawing it over my shoulder. “I need to go.”
“You aren’t staying?”
“Much as I’d like to, there are pressing matters. A ship en route to Stalwart Bay found a boy drifting in a rowboat. He told a mad tale about frost giants attacking the Skerrian islands, massacring people. Before we could question him, he ran off. I’m leading the search for him.”
“Westlanders.” My mind went to my warrior—could he have done such a thing? “Do the clans think they’ll attack Glasnith?”
“Word is spreading about those corpses that washed ashore here. Between that and the Skerrian boy, the clans are worried. The men of the Frozen Sun have been quiet far too long,” he said. “But Glasnith isn’t Skerrey. If they think to conquer us, they’re fools. I’ll be the first to tell them so, if they dare make landfall.”
“So if frost giants storm the shore, you’ll saunter out and cock a snook at them?”
“Precisely.” He stuck his tongue out, pressed his thumb to his nose, and waggled his fingers at me. “What? This doesn’t strike fear into your heart?”
I laughed. “Not quite.”
“Quinlan!” Garreth called from the doorway at the far end of the stables. “Not making an arse of yourself to my sister, are you?”
Beside him, Rhys chimed in. “Stop pulling her braids or she’ll blacken your eye again!”
I looked at Quinlan, already missing him. He raised my hand to his lips. “Gwylor keep you, Lira.”
“And you, Quinlan.”
He ran to join Rhys and Garreth. They carried on up the path, pushing, teasing one another as they had since they were children. I watched until they were out of sight.
An inexplicable sadness lapped at the shores of my heart.
When I entered the hovel that night, the candle was already lit. Reyker sat, clothed in his trousers and tunic, resting his back against the wall. His hair hung to his shoulders, bronze-gold like barley. His gray pallor was fading. His eyes were clear.
We looked at each other with uncertainty.
A coughing fit battered him, and I put a hand to his brow. It was tepid; the fever still stalked him, but it had loosened its deathly grip.
“Despite your best efforts, it seems you’ll live.” I smiled.
He returned it, and my breath caught in my throat. I was suddenly very aware that I was alone with him, too far from my village to be heard if I screamed.
Reyker hooked a tentative finger beneath the rope around my neck, brushing my collarbone, and a shiver ran through me. He lifted his finger and the medallion emerged from my bodice, dangling between us.
“You stole it,” I said. “The night you let me go.”
He pantomimed a series of gestures—finding something, picking it up, placing it around his neck. The medallion’s chain must have broken when I was struggling in the boat.
“Where did you come from? Why are you here?”
No reaction.
I held up my wrist, pushing the scar of flame toward his face. “You did this. You cut me.” Every time I was near him, the scar warmed, as if r
esponding to his presence. “Why? What does this mark mean?”
Reyker looked at me blankly.
“First, you eat. Then you give me answers.” I wasn’t sure how to get information from someone who couldn’t speak my language, but I’d figure something out. I unpacked fruit and bread from my satchel. “You need more than broth or you’ll waste away.”
“Lira.” When I glanced up, his features were grave. “Go, Lira.”
“Go?”
He pointed to his warrior-mark, spreading his arms and drawing them in to form a circle. Stabbing violently at the air. Pointing toward the village, then at me.
“Westlanders—your people—will come here. To raid.”
He stabbed at his neck. “Draepa.”
To kill.
“My clan is strong. The harbor is well guarded.” I used my own flurry of gesticulations to buttress my words. “What do you want me to do? Tell my people to lay down their arms and bow to the Westlanders when they come ashore?”
“Go,” he said again, pointing inland, away from the village.
“You mean run? Abandon Stony Harbor, where my clan has lived for centuries?” My voice rose in disgust. “My ancestors were carved from these stones by the gods, our blood formed from the seawater, our hearts from the earth. This is our land, and we’ll fight for it. The Sons of Stone are mighty warriors. Let your people come.”
Reyker laughed—a dark, dour sound. He took one of my hands and slid it beneath the loose laces of his tunic, my palm flat against his chest. “Leifa.”
“No.” I tried to pull free, but even in his weakened state he was strong.
It wasn’t my choice. I kept my mind closed, and still he pulled me in. I fell, past sharp black canyons and bright sloping valleys, through molten red rivers and skies that shattered around me like glass. My vision flickered. For a moment, I was blind, and then …
Beasts of the Frozen Sun Page 5
