“Didn’t expect that,” Renn said, shifting on the ground.
“That Alixa would just walk off? That I’m not a princess? That neither of us are?”
“Um, yes. Yes. And yes.” While Renn was frankly relieved, more than anything he was sad for his friend. After all the excitement, all that could-have-been, this was a letdown. “How you doing, Emmie? You okay?”
“Just a plain old girl from a little Khuulie fishing village. That’s all.” Emmie was smiling vaguely, a far-off look in her eyes. “I’m good with it. Really.”
“You are?” Renn didn’t believe her, not one bit. “This is what you wanted?”
Before Emmie could respond, they heard a loud noise off in the woods. Emmie turned and scowled. “I wonder what got into Lix?”
Crouched alongside a gurgling stream, Alixa slammed a rock into the water. Cursed herself for losing her nerve. If she could walk Emmie through her fears, she should be able to face up to her own. Only she couldn’t. Hidden alongside the stream, Alixa pulled the laces of her tunic wide apart and took deep breaths. She stared down, then squeezed her eyes shut. She hadn’t gone to this place in years. She’d declared it off-limits, somebody else’s life. And now, her arms wrapped around herself as though that might protect her, she was going to reclaim that life again. . .
Fire. Screams. Chaos. Death everywhere. Guards had attempted to meet the ambushing invaders but had been repulsed. Outside the rock fortress, the massacre of Kaisson was raging unchecked. There was nowhere to run for sanctuary but the fortress—but where to from there?
Ten-year old Alixa ran frantically with her guardian Barrad, Melkiana the district chieftain, and Ledrick, the captain of the guard, through the fortress hallways, checking doors and entryways, their footsteps clattering ominously on the floor.
“That storeroom!” Melkiana shouted. She stopped a troop of guards racing to meet the attackers. “Stand your ground here. Protect this hall with your lives.”
The four ran inside, the guard captain slamming the door shut behind them. Melkiana felt around the back wall, behind three grain bins, and then pushed on a nondescript chip of rock. The wall shifted, revealing a small opening.
“Hurry!” she cried.
Alixa couldn’t fathom how that was going to help. It was too small for Melkiana, certainly for Barrad. Alixa’s breath seized: Melkiana intended to send her down that tiny passageway, alone. Barrad would stay and fight and die.
“No!” Alixa screamed. Melkiana tried to shush her. Alixa slapped her away. “No!”
Barrad kneeled and wrapped Alixa in a hug. “It’s the only way,” he said softly. “We have to get you out, Lixy.”
“No.” Alixa began to cry. “Wanna stay with you.”
She could feel Barrad—who was so much more to her than his title ‘guardian’ conveyed—shake with tears. “Lixy-girl, you’ve got to go.”
“Wanna die with you,” Alixa responded defiantly.
“Oh, Lixy-girl, if I thought we might die, fighting side-by-side, then maybe. But. . . they’ll take you, and. . .” His voice clenched.
“Barrad,” Melkiana warned as the fighting in the hallway got louder.
“I will never let them take you.” Barrad squeezed her shoulders.
“Get to Aveon and warn them, Alixa,” Melkiana said, steering her toward the little hole in the wall. “Tell them we’ve been betrayed. That we’ve fallen. You’ll be safe there.”
“I’m safe with him! Don’t wanna be safe anywhere else!”
There was a thump at the door. Ledrick strained to keep it pinned shut.
“Lixy-girl, you must.”
Crying harder, Alixa nodded reluctantly. She got down onto her hands and knees to back into the hole. “I love you, Barrad,” she said feebly. “I don’t want to leave you”
“Love you, too.” He placed his fist over his heart. “Always, my little Lixy-girl. Always.”
Melkiana threw a small cloak around Alixa. She could feel packets and tools in the seams and belt. Melkiana fastened a beautiful sheathed sword to her side. Melkiana was crying, and the guard overcome with emotion as well.
Alixa backed into the hole.
“You must get to Aveon,” Melkiana whispered.
With a click, the rock slid in place, leaving Alixa in pitch blackness. She heard the grain barrel sweep against the ground. Alixa crawled backwards. She flinched as a loud slam came from the room, and her head cracked against the low ceiling. Stifling a cry, she skittered away as fast as she could, the tunnel filling with muffled shouts and the clanging of steel. The sounds of battle continued long and harsh, then abruptly stopped with a woman’s agonized scream. She knew it was Melkiana. Dead.
Alixa kept shimmying backward for what seemed like forever. Her body shook as the enclosed darkness of the passageway tightened frighteningly around her. At one point, it was so narrow she was sure she’d wedged herself stuck. Beating back her hysteria with a willpower greater than a ten-year old should have to possess, Alixa forced her body through, tearing her leggings and scraping up her arms. Finally, she could sense a dull light brightening.
Once she was out, Alixa frantically put space between herself and the wretched hole, gasping for air, trying to squint her eyes open, attempting to get her bearings. As her eyes adjusted, she realized the mountainside was wholly unfamiliar. She had no idea where she’d come out.
It was then Alixa finally was seized with a horrifying thought.
“I don’t know where Aveon is!”
Terrified, she darted back for the tunnel, away from the valley of unknowns. A few feet from the hole, her boot slipped on a mound of loose grass and she slid. Down the side of the mountain Alixa tumbled, careening off a tree stump and a small jutted rock she fruitlessly tried to grab hold of. She dropped off a short bluff, hitting her head and blacking out.
When she came to, she bolted upright, eyes wide. It was dark. Hours had passed. The stars formed unknown patterns high above her. The weight of being completely alone and lost began to crush her.
“But I don’t know where Aveon is,” Alixa whispered miserably, tears flowing unabated at her abject failure.
Alixa’s eyes flew open. She was on hands and knees, nose almost in the dirt, mucus and spittle hanging from her features. She attempted to steady her breathing through a torrent of sobs and hiccups.
She’d excised that little girl long ago. Buried her early years and any recollection of, or yearning for, a free-spirited young Lixy, surrounded by people who cared for her. That girl had died with the rest of Kaisson.
Now she’d given that girl new life, reclaimed her pain as her own. Alixa sat up, wiping her sloppy face. She hadn’t cried in years. Literally, years. She’d banished her childhood and the nightmare that was her teenage years as she morphed into a hard-nosed survivor.
Holding her head, Alixa peered around her surroundings. Nobody. Good. Renn and Emmie would honor her space. It took several minutes to get her wracking sobs under control. She had rejected this part of her life; it felt foreign to accept the heartache back. Yet at the same time, Alixa found, she felt more whole. Frightened and needy, but somehow more whole.
“So. . .” Renn scratched his head. “You don’t want to be Princess Emmidawn?”
“Could you see me living in a castle?” Emmie scooched around to his left side, where he could see her better. “Starched formal clothes, high-brow court manners, all that business?”
“Emmie, I can see you being anything you want.”
“Whatever.” Emmie rolled her eyes, biting back a grin. She wagged a finger at Renn. “Anything I want, yah? See, that’s it. The old man was right, making me wait, forcing me to think. I was so awestruck! Royalty and glamor and a new home with ‘my people.’ Wow! Like Lixa said, though, crisis makes you focus on what’s really important.” She stuck her tongue into the side of her mouth, doodling in the dirt with her finger. “But power and stuff? Nah. That’s not me.”
“Hey, you could handle it.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I’m not going to argue with you.” Renn smiled—pleased to be sitting by the Emmie he’d gotten to know so well. Yet at the same time, he wanted the best for her. “I’m just saying don’t sell yourself short.”
“Oh, buddy, I don’t plan to. But I’m going to change my home, Renn, not run away and find a different one. I’m going to convince those people. That’s what Dad said, that’s what he’d want.” She returned to her doodling. “You remember what you told me on the hill the day we met Lixa?”
“Umm. . .”
“That I’d be a great advocate, like Brie.”
Mostly Renn remembered it came across like a mocking insult. “Emmie, you know I didn’t mean that to be hurtful.”
“I’d love that. Not just the marrying and stuff. But walking folks through their hurts and problems. Giving people life. Like Lixa did for me. But, you know. . .” Emmie swished her long, blonde hair at Renn.
“Maybe we’ll find a different world.” At first, he was just trying to be encouraging. But what had Ebner said about how few might be needed to enact change? “Maybe we’ll make a different world. You’d be perfect. I know Brie would be all in with you. But. . .” Renn cocked his head, his scars shifting right into her sightlines. “I must’ve missed something. What did Alixa do for you?”
“Oh. Wonder when Lix’s coming back?” Emmie’s face turned hot. “Let’s, um, take your sorry ol’ legs for a little walk while we wait for her.”
Alixa skulked back towards Renn and Emmie. She was doing this even if she had to force herself. She peered from behind a tree to see Emmie easing Renn to the ground. Alixa’s feet dug into the turf like an obstinate mule. She would have to force herself.
“Ah-ow,” Renn exclaimed as Emmie let him drop a little too soon. He grimaced, but the rebuke Alixa had expected (and frankly, Emmie deserved) didn’t come.
“Sorry, I’ll get lower next time. But, Renn, you’re doing so well! Every time I sped up, you stayed right with me.”
“I thought you were just playing hard to get.”
“That so, gimpy boy?” Emmie straightened up, a sly smile on her face. “Maybe you’d like to try again. I’ll show you what hard to get looks like.”
“That a challenge?”
Emmie stuck her tongue out then caught sight of Alixa’s red puffy face hiding in the trees. “Lix? What’s wrong?”
“Who said anything’s wrong?”
“Lix. . .” Emmie put her hands on her hips, letting Alixa know she was not fooling her.
“Emmie, Renn. I’ve never told anyone this. Had no one to tell. . .” Alixa gave a short, hard laugh, then forced herself forward. “I, uh, grew up in Kaisson—one of the towns on the map. And, Emmie, I can tell you about the night we were attacked. We, Emmie. Because if you’re not from Kaisson, I’d bet serious coin you’re from somewhere in the Valley. We might’ve been neighbors, who knows. That day that ended with you at the lake? Worst day of my life.”
Alixa forged ahead before she could stop herself, pouring out her recall of the betrayal of Kaisson, the futile attempt at defense, and her haunting escape. Renn and Emmie listened with rapt attention.
“So, this map.” Alixa turned the worn oxskin map over in her hands, running her finger along three jagged punctures leading to the unmarked upper right corner. She tapped the empty spot. “Aveon. Right there. Hidden in the empty spot in the northeast. The three holes? Three big limestone spires that guided the way. Three towers to Aveon. Only an idiot could forget that. Three towers to Aveon.”
Alixa sobbed, could find no way to stem the tide of her grief.
“They were counting on me. I failed everyone.”
“Oh, Lix, you were ten. You were scared and lost.” Emmie rushed to Alixa’s side. She pulled her into an embrace and was surprised that Alixa let her. “Nobody’s blaming you.”
“Nobody’s left to blame me.”
“I’m left.” Emmie stroked Alixa’s white-blonde hair. “I’m not blaming you, not for anything.”
They sat quietly for a long time. There was more but Alixa was more drained then she had been after their fight on the prairie. Then running to Corbiern. Then back to the tree.
“They must’ve been trying to find that last princess, yah?” Emmie rested her chin atop Alixa’s head and ran her fingers through Alixa’s silky hair. “They obviously thought it was me, what with carrying me to the lake and whatever it was they tried to do. I wonder where she was?”
“Kaisson,” Alixa said dejectedly. “So hidden she didn’t know it herself. Somebody led them right to her.”
“How do you know that?” Renn asked.
Alixa sat up dejectedly. She loosened the collar of her tunic and pulled out a medallion identical to Emmie’s. Yet not precisely identical. She tapped the bottom left corner, where gleaming silver claws shone at the end of the white cougar’s paw. Alixa’s scratchy voice was barely a whisper.
“Because it looks like she’s me.”
LV - Lamberden Pass
Baerdron pushed with his thick forearms, shoving through the dense stands of poplars and shrubs where the trail he’d hoped to quickly and easily traverse was supposed to be. This mess of brambles was where he’d directed Alixa, but now that he had an idea of her intentions, he regretted his advice. A jabby branch careened off his arm and thwapped him in the face. Even more annoying, he heard a purposeful throat-clearing he’d become all-too-familiar with.
“Baerdron, ah, you sure they passed this way?” Leeman. . . “Your trail is rather pathetic, you see. That north road we left a few days ago—that at least had the semblance of a civilized road. And you yourself said, it had been frequented quite recently.”
The big gruff man paused before responding with something unduly harsh. No, not unduly in the least, he told himself. This Leeman is a nag, like a sour old woman. He heard a stifled giggle next to him. He glared at Brie.
“Oh, sorry. Did I say something?” Brie covered her mouth, attempting to hide her humor at watching these two very different men interact.
“You certainly brought something.”
“Leeman.” Brie laid a hand on Leeman’s shoulder, flashed her calming smile. “We’re trusting Baerd to lead us, remember? Why don’t you count our people as they pass through? This is a tricky trail to follow, as you’ve pointed out.”
“Noted, Briesana, noted,” Leeman said reluctantly. He dragged himself down the line of men. “I like counting. . . Like I’m back at my lovely consulate desk.”
“Leeman proved his worth in Longardin—motivated, resourceful, reliable. This isn’t quite his thing,” Brie chided Baerd, then added sheepishly. “Besides, I intended to have Renn’s brother with me if it hadn’t been necessary to send him home.”
“So ‘yes’ he’s what we need, but ‘no’ he isn’t? That what you’re saying?” Now it was Baerd’s turn to be amused at her expense. “He could well be right, though. I steered Alixa this way but she’s a stubborn one. Probably tried hitching south.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you and Alixa together, butting heads like a stubborn father with a headstrong daughter.”
“You romanticize it all you want. T’aint nothing like that.”
“I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”
Baerd clammed up tight, though, and Brie couldn’t fish anything out of him, try as she might. Shortly, though, she noticed the trail suddenly turning open and clear. Strange. Though Leeman will be pleased.
“What have we here?” a shrill voice made Brie jump. Baerd swung his axe from his belt, shoving Brie behind him. “The parents finally out looking for their runaway children?”
Brie stared perplexed at a shriveled old man. After a few seconds, a look of recognition passed over Baerdron’s face.
“Ebner! That mean Alixa passed your way?”
“Aye, true.” The little man tottered up to them, snickering “I’m probably as eager to relay our visit as you are to hear it.” He leane
d on his staff as he extended a hand. “But first, let’s feed this mass of raggedy humanity you’ve brought me.”
Long after dark, after everyone was settled, Baerdron, Brie, and Leeman sat with Ebner around his stone fireplace. Leeman sank into the poofy cushions of an easy chair and began snoring. There would be no sleeping for Brie. She’d been impatiently steaming for hours now to grill this man about Renn and Emmie’s well-being.
“Now, then, to our friends. Something about those kids—been stuck in my craw since the minute they left. Can’t put my finger on it precisely.” Ebner leaned back into his chair, sipping his tea. Brie stared into the fireplace, not touching her tea. “Ah, don’t fret, young lady. You couldn’t ask for a better caretaker for your little team than Alixa. Quite wary, that one. Made sure they didn’t reveal, well, anything. Which is why I’m still in a bit of a quandary about just what it is about them.”
“Wary,” Baerd harrumphed. “That’s entirely over-generous. And she ain’t being a team with anyone, certainly not a caretaker.”
“You’d be surprised,” Ebner said softly.
“I’ve known that girl for years. Trust me, I know what she’s made of.” Baerd waved a calloused hand. “Don’t misunderstand. Alixa has all my respect. But Alixa is cold, closed, and hard. Period.”
“But you like her, very much,” Brie said. “It’s obvious whenever you speak of her.”
“So what is it, old friend?” Ebner asked. “Why put up with her?”
The shadows of the fire played across Baerd’s face. At long last, he spoke. “First time I saw her, she was still a kid though she’d long since been deprived of the joys of being one. The night I met her. . . it was as though her soul had been wrenched from her; beaten, broken, and frightfully alone. Didn’t say a word to me for days and has hardly said ‘boo’ about her life prior to that moment. As I said. Closed.”
Baerd stared at the ceiling.
The Silver Claw Page 34
