by Meg Cowley
“If their words be true, then it is troubling for my kin,” Ragnar said with a frown of worry.
“The goblins are always causing a fuss,” Aedon said dismissively. “I’m sure your kin have all in hand, as they usually do. You know how the goblin-kin get rowdy time and again, before your jarls put them in their place.”
“Jarls?” Harper whispered.
“Lords,” Brand whispered back.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Ragnar said, though he seemed unconvinced.
“I’m always right.” Aedon winked at the dwarf.
“What concerns me more is the news from Tournai. What would be huge enough that the king be turned from seeking us for the theft of his Dragonhearts?” Erika asked with a scowl.
Aedon tempered. “I agree. Those are dark tidings, if they be true. What did you hear, Brand? You were closer than I.”
“A curse lays upon Tournai. Those of magical blood in the court waste away daily, their powers spent and gone. The queen is gravely ill, and they say King Toroth’s power wanes. He can barely control the Kingsguard, and rumours spread like wildfire. No one knows what passes, and in that unknown lay doubt, fear, and unrest. It is said that the common people will mass against him ere too long.”
The companions shared long glances. What could they say to it? Tournai was too far away for them to be concerned with.
“Well,” Aedon said lightly. “At least that might turn them from our trail for a while.”
“We can only hope,” muttered Brand.
The merry atmosphere and raucous laughter of the inn seemed to fade into the background as they worried on this new information, until it seemed Aedon had enough.
“Come. We need to be far from here by dawn. Who knows who we may encounter upon the road if we dally too long. We stay our original course and head for Keldheim.”
“We’ll have to be extra careful. The goblins are sly, sneaky creatures.” Ragnar’s face contorted in an uncharacteristically hateful scowl. The flickering firelight threw deep shadows across the crevices of his face, making him appear even more angry. “We don’t want to encounter them if they are on the rise once more.”
“Duly noted. I dare say we’re not planning to. What’s the safest road in?” Aedon asked.
“As we planned. Take the cleft and pass Himmelheim on the dwarven road to Keldheim. The main ways will be safe and clear.”
“Then it is done. Come.”
They rose, and others glanced at them as they passed. Harper returned their interest with her own, taking in every detail of them. They were quick to drop their gazes against her scrutiny.
They once more walked out into the cold night, which felt bitter after the cosy warmth of the inn, wrapping their cloaks around them in a futile attempt to stave off the wind, then saddling the horses with rapidly numbing fingers. Harper tried to summon magic to keep her warm, but the best she could manage was to keep the worst of the chill from her toes.
“We travel through the night,” Brand said grimly.
They nodded.
“We’ll make the pass by dawn and rest then,” Aedon agreed.
Harper nodded dully. With a full belly and lulled by the warmth of the fire, she had no inclination to ride through the cold dark at all. Yet it seemed they now fled a new enemy, one that skulked in the dark of night.
She drew close to Aedon, suddenly happier than ever to be sharing a horse...and his protection. Brand took to the skies, battering them all with a gust of air as he took flight to circle above them, watchful, as ever, for the first sign of trouble.
Twelve
Landry froze. His heart stuttered as the shadowy figure stalked toward him through the darkening forges lit only by their dying embers. His hammers hung from the wall by their loops, and all his tools, which could be weapons, were stored neatly away. All out of reach.
“You were at the guild meet. Why?” he blurted out.
The dark figure stopped and cocked his head. The man stepped from the shadows into the ruddy glow of the dying forge fires that cast sickening shadows and light across his face. For the first time, Landry saw who skulked. He paled.
“I was.” The spymaster’s even voice gave no answer – or hint of intention.
Landry stood ready, though he was not sure what for. What did the king’s spymaster want with him? He could barely hear the cracking of the embers over the rush of blood in his own ears.
Was he to be arrested? To be the latest innocent to be charged with treason? To be used as bait to draw out the dissent that bubbled too close to the surface? What would become of his family if he were taken?
“You need not worry. I’m not here to arrest you,” he said, as though he could read Landry’s mind.
Perhaps he can, Landry thought darkly before he silenced the thought and glared at the king’s spymaster with as much suspicion and hostility as he dared. “What do you want, spymaster?” Landry asked, striving to keep his voice level. In his worry, he had forgotten the man’s true title, his House, but he was too consumed by concern at his own predicament to worry about the rigidities of politeness.
He did not trust the immaculate, dark man, with his sly smile, cunning eyes, and clean, smooth hands that had never done a hard day’s work.
The spymaster flexed those smooth, unworn fingers as he stepped forward, casting himself back into shadow once more. Landry took a step back. “Call me Dimitrius, Master Landry.”
Landry swallowed. He knows who I am. The king’s spymaster knew everything. Sickness swooped in the pit of Landry’s stomach.
“I know you and the guilds struggle to meet the king’s tithe, and other taxes, in light of the disruption to your trade routes.”
Landry said nothing. He would not incriminate himself or his peers, if that was what the spymaster sought.
“What if I could help?”
Landry narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
The spymaster sighed. “I’m not trying to trap you. You may know me as the king’s spymaster, but many of my duties are less...unsavoury than you might believe. I know the king will not listen to you. He will not aid the dwarves in defeating the scourge of goblins.
“But you and I are not alone in longing for a fairer country, Master Landry. The ability to live our lives in peace, good health, and fortune. Do you not want the same for your wife, sons, and daughter?”
A chill struck Landry to his core, horrified at the mention of his family. This dangerous man knew his family in such detail? Landry’s fingers twitched. He longed to feel his hammer in his hand – its strength and security – though he knew he would be no match against the powerful elf before him.
“Do you threaten my family?” Landry growled.
Dimitrius held up his hands, eyebrows raised. “Of course not, Master Smith. I merely offer you...a better way forward, shall we say. I cannot promise anything, but if I could secure the trade routes once more, so the guilds could resume full, unhindered business and Tournai could remain stable over the winter, you would be amenable, yes?”
“What do you want in return?” Landry asked flatly. He was no fool. The court of Tournai did not barter in gifts. Favours were hard-won, earned through great effort, and debts were always collected when it came to the elves. He had learned that, at least, from Aislin’s callous family.
Dimitrius’s gaze sharpened, the affable smile fading from his face. Landry knew the spymaster had realised he could not be tricked or cajoled into whatever he plotted.
“I need nothing from you, Master Smith. Nothing but your word that when the time comes, I will have your support.”
Dimitrius waited expectantly.
Landry clenched a fist. I can neither deny nor accept him. After a pause, he sighed. “I will consider consulting the guilds with your proposal.” He folded his arms. Unusually tall for a mortal, he was glad he stood in equal measure with the slim elf before him. He stood in silence, glaring, channeling his suspicion and fear into open distrust and dislike. The conversation was ov
er.
Leave, Landry growled in his head.
The spymaster stirred, then nodded sharply. He glanced around the forge, his eyes lingering over the curiosities within. “I will bid thee goodnight then, Master Smith. I’ll return for your answer soon. Extend my warmest greetings to your wife and children.” The spymaster’s eyes were hard and cold.
Landry waited until Dimitrius turned away and strode from the forge before he blew out a breath and hurried upstairs to where those he loved and the warm hearth awaited. There, he could shut the door and bar it against the dark of night and the spymaster’s threats...and pretend they did not darken his threshold.
DIMITRI AND HIS ASSOCIATES’ work had been a little too effective. Riots became a daily occurence in the city of Tournai. The king’s curfew barely held, and it took the combined effort of the Kingsguard and Winged Kingsguard to keep a seething order – of sorts.
The common folk were riled up against the king’s rising tithes, as well as the class divides between the more privileged elves and the less privileged mortals. In turn, the magical bloods of the court, struck down by the mystery affliction tearing through the city and sparing few of magical blood, stirred up tensions even more.
The mortal members of the city took advantage in their superiors’ infirmities. Shops were looted. Homes and buildings vandalised. Those of elven blood set upon and beaten – or worse. Hate toward the elves from the mortals, who had been little better than chattel to them over the centuries, ran deeper than Dimitri realised.
Rumours of instability in the king’s court only fuelled the divide and the fighting. Rumours farther afield, by way of traders arriving in the city, of the goblin uprising sowed fear amongst the populace, fear that had been contained to the guilds so far. It seemed the goblins had already taken the roads between the dwarven cities.
No one knew fact from fiction, but caravans had started going missing at an alarming rate on the now impassable trade routes, and scouting patrols simply vanished, never to return. By all accounts, a dark, brooding stain upon the dwarven lands of Valtivar was spreading.
Too close to Pelenor, all whispered. Too close for comfort.
Dimitri was thrilled in a way. Here was the sum of all his machinations now fruiting into open spoils. I barely needed to try! They rouse themselves into action. It seemed that Toroth had indeed grown his own army, one that would eventually cast him down.
He enjoyed reassuring the king whilst sowing rumours throughout Pelenor of Saradon’s return in Valtivar. Before he knew it, trouble had spread through most of Pelenor, with looting and riots in all the cities, uprisings against the king, and fearful panic with the looming threat of the cursed one’s return.
Meanwhile, he kept his own allies as close as he could, though many had fled to their own estates and lands in fear of the mystery sickness creeping through the court and Tournai.
Instinctively, whilst the country descended into chaos, Dimitri knew it was not yet time to act. To remove Toroth would only create a power void he could not fill. Yet. But it was time to finally hint at what was to come. The mystery illness was already being called, albeit in hushed whispers, Saradon’s Curse, thanks to Dimitri’s associates’ insidious hints.
His own father and brothers dithered, desperate to flee to their own lands, but Dimitri commanded them to remain. To their growing frustration, he would tell them nothing of his plans or what he knew, only ordering them to trust him to see them through the ruin that was to come. Damir, his cowardly father, did not like being blind to the threat. Dimitri could not have cared less. There was no love or loyalty toward them. They were another tool, nothing more.
Thirteen
When dawn broke, the giant cliffs soared around them, herding them into the wide valley, which gradually narrowed, the carpet of evergreens marching from one side of the valley mouth to the other. After the open plains, it felt oppressive and dark to fall under their shadow. Harper craned her neck up until it hurt, yet she could not see the sky, so tall and thick were the trees there.
Her faelight hung next to Aedon’s, bobbing beside them as they travelled. It was a pale imitation of his, but the first she had managed to conjure. She was proud of it, steadily fuelling it with a small trickle of magic, much like feeding a fire.
Their horses plodded along, exhausted, and eventually, Aedon bade them to stop as they came upon a small stream crossing the trail.
“We’ll stop here. There’s water and plenty of shelter.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “We’d best not dally too long. We can’t afford to sleep all day.”
Fatigued, Harper sat against a tree, cradled in its roots, and was asleep almost immediately.
AFTER A FEW HOURS, Brand chivvied them all to their feet. With barely a word, they mounted the horses and continued. Harper could have fallen asleep against Aedon’s warm back as she clung to him in the saddle, but after a while, the trees thinned and a welcome breeze blew. Mountains passed on either side, soaring out of sight, and the ground slowly rose as they delved deeper into the mountains.
By the following day, they took winding tracks up through forested foothills, where breaks in the trees now showed the plains far below them, just visible through the foothills. Aedon told Harper that they were truly in dwarf country now, and Pelenor was far behind them. The countryside looked much the same to her.
That night, they stopped in a small clearing beneath a rocky overhang, surrounded by the dark trees. The valley was narrow, the trees unnervingly quiet. A small waterfall rushed nearby, the only sound, collecting in a small pool before it continued its journey down the mountains. Harper gratefully drank the cold, clear, refreshing water. The freshest she had yet tasted.
“That’s melt water from the glaciers far above us,” Ragnar said. “Soon, it will not flow, for all will freeze. We are lucky the first storms of winter run late this year; otherwise, some of the passes would already be closed to us.”
Harper nodded, regarding Ragnar curiously. The dwarf seemed excited to be in his homelands once more, yet also nervous and tense, but she dared not pry as to why. He had already been uncharacteristically snappy with Erika that morning and disappeared to sleep as soon as they ate their evening meal, not even staying awake for his customary game of chatura or to carve his latest game piece.
Erika and Brand slunk off for their customary evening sparring session, leaving Aedon and Harper alone around the fire.
Harper smiled hesitantly at Aedon, who grinned back. Despite her tiredness, the frisson fluttering around her stomach lifted her mood. But far from her hopes of revisiting the intimacy Brand had disturbed all those days ago, Aedon had her practice honing her magic, as he had done as they travelled across the plains.
Again, he laid out an array of rocks, twigs, and small objects of varying sizes before her, and again, she did her best to lift them. A few lifted easily, wobbling in the air a few feet above the ground. Others remained stubbornly frozen. Some flew through the air a few feet before they tumbled to the ground as they lost momentum.
She stopped when it felt as though all her energy and concentration had been leached from her.
“Why does this make me so tired?” Harper complained. Aedon seemed to not even break a sweat when he did significant magic, let alone simple things, like lifting a pinecone.
Aedon grinned as he sent leaves and pinecones tumbling around her. Scowling, Harper batted them from the air. He laughed and released his hold on the objects, all of them tumbling to the ground.
“I keep telling you. Magic is a muscle. Think how tired you are after walking or spending a day in the saddle. This is the same. It takes strength to perform magic. Why do you think you cannot move mountains? If it were as easy as that, all mountains would be upon their heads!”
Harper snorted at the ridiculous thought. “How long does it take to be able to do...well...interesting things with magic?”
“The more you train, the faster it will be,” replied Aedon, but he would not say any more than that.
He suddenly stood. “Come. I’ll show you something easier.”
Curious, she followed him from the clearing along the cliff until they came upon the waterfall. Somewhere in the distance, the muffled sounds of weapons clanging filtered through the trees.
Brand and Erika. Harper smiled. What an odd pair.
“Water is easier to manipulate, for it loves to move. Want to see what a little magic can do?” Aedon asked, eyes twinkling at her mischievously. She nodded. He reached out and pulled her toward him, her back to his front. Her breath caught and excitement shot through her as he encircled her in his arms.
Harper had not wanted to admit that she desired him, but it had been so very long since her dalliances with Alric, the tanner’s son. As much as she had never desired the commitment of being Alric’s wife, or anyone else’s, there were other parts of his company she missed. Parts Aedon had lit within her again.
She felt his magic rush through them, winding with hers, and then the waterfall no longer cascaded down the rocks. Jets of water arced from the sheet, twining and twirling through the air, cocooning them. Ribbons of water raced around them like a spider’s web, catching the starlight, the full moon’s glare, and the last light of the dying day.
“Can you feel it?” Aedon whispered, his breath hot on her ear.
“Yes,” she breathed. She felt his want for the water to be free. She added her will to his own, her remnants of magic to his, and the water twisted and turned even more, until it seemed they were alone, standing in a bubble in the middle of a waterfall rushing around them.
Aedon’s fingers stroked her arm as he turned her to face him. Slowly, he dipped his head toward hers. She did not dare look at him, her gaze dropping to his mouth. Her breath quickened as his arms tightened and his lips met hers.
His kiss was fire, racing through her body. She opened her mouth to him eagerly and worked her hands under the warmth of his cloak, holding his body to hers. Around them, the rushing of the water continued, or was it the sound of blood in her own ears? She could not tell. His sweet tongue gently teased hers, and she pushed herself closer.