Manners or self-preserving instincts kicked in, and Sartaq continued his approach, hopping down onto the first ledge of the pit to stride the rest of the way.
Houlun rose when he was near, enfolding him in a swift, hard embrace. She cupped his shoulders when she was done, the woman nearly as tall as him, shoulders strong and thighs well muscled, and surveyed Sartaq with a shrewd eye.
“Sorrow weighs heavily on you still,” she observed, running a scar-flecked hand over Sartaq’s high cheekbone. “And worry.”
Sartaq’s eyes shuttered before he ducked his head. “I have missed you, Ej.”
“Sweet-talker,” Houlun chided, patting his cheek.
To Nesryn’s delight, she could have sworn the prince blushed.
The firelight cast the few strands of silver in Houlun’s hair with red and gold as she peered around Sartaq’s broad shoulders to where Nesryn stood atop the lip of the pit. “And the archer from the north arrives at last.” An incline of her head. “I am Houlun, daughter of Dochin, but you may call me Ej, as the others do.”
One glance into the woman’s brown eyes and Nesryn knew Houlun was not one who missed much. Nesryn bowed her head. “It is an honor.”
The hearth-mother stared at her for a long moment. Nesryn met her gaze, remaining as still as she could. Letting the woman see what she wanted.
At last, Houlun’s eyes slid toward Sartaq. “We have matters to discuss.”
Absent that fierce gaze, Nesryn loosed a breath but kept her spine ramrod straight.
Sartaq nodded, something like relief on his face. But he glanced toward Falkan, watching all from his seat. “They are things that should be told privately, Ej.”
Not rude, but certainly not warm. Nesryn refrained from echoing the prince’s sentiment.
Houlun waved a hand. “Then they may wait.” She pointed to the stone bench. “Sit.”
“Ej—”
Falkan shifted, as if he’d do them all a favor and go.
But Houlun pointed to him in silent warning to remain. “I would have you all listen.”
Sartaq dropped onto the bench, the only sign of his discontent being the foot he tapped on the floor. Nesryn sat beside him, the stern woman reclaiming her perch between them and Falkan.
“An ancient malice is stirring deep in these mountains,” Houlun said. “It is why I have been gone these past few days—to seek it out.”
“Ej.” Warning and fear coated the prince’s voice.
“I am not so old that I cannot wield my sulde, boy.” She glowered at him. Indeed, nothing about this woman seemed old at all.
Sartaq asked, frowning, “What did you go in pursuit of?”
Houlun glanced around the hall for any stray ears. “Ruk nests have been pillaged. Eggs stolen in the night, hatchlings vanishing.”
Sartaq swore, filthy and low. Nesryn blinked at it, even as her stomach tightened. “Poachers have not dared tread in these mountains for decades,” the prince said. “But you should not have pursued them alone, Ej.”
“It was not poachers I sought. But something worse.”
Shadows lined the woman’s face, and Nesryn swallowed. If the Valg had come here—
“My own ej called them the kharankui.”
“It means shadow—darkness,” Sartaq murmured to Nesryn, dread tightening his face.
Her heart thundered. Should the Valg be here already—
“But in your lands,” Houlun went on, glancing between Nesryn and Falkan, “they call them something different, don’t they?”
Nesryn sized up Falkan as he swallowed, wondering herself how to lie or deflect revealing anything about the Valg—
But Falkan nodded. And he replied, voice barely audible above the flame, “We call them the stygian spiders.”
CHAPTER
31
“The stygian spiders are little more than myths,” Nesryn managed to say to Houlun. “Spidersilk is so rare some even doubt it exists. You might be chasing ghosts.”
But it was Falkan who replied with a grim smile, “I would beg to differ, Captain Faliq.” He reached into the breast of his jacket, and Nesryn tensed, hand shooting for the dagger at her waist—
It was no weapon he pulled out.
The white fabric glittered, the iridescence like starfire as Falkan shifted it in his hand. Even Sartaq whistled at the handkerchief-sized piece of cloth.
“Spidersilk,” Falkan said, tucking the piece back into his jacket. “Straight from the source.”
As Nesryn’s mouth popped open, Sartaq said, “You have seen these terrors up close.” Not quite a question.
“I bartered with their kin in the northern continent,” Falkan corrected, that grim smile remaining. Along with shadows. So many shadows. “Nearly three years ago. Some might deem it a fool’s bargain, but I walked away with a hundred yards of Spidersilk.”
The handkerchief in his jacket alone could fetch a king’s ransom. A hundred yards of it …“You must be wealthy as the khagan,” she blurted.
A shrug. “I have learned that true wealth is not all glittering gold and jewels.”
Sartaq asked quietly, “What was the cost, then?” For the stygian spiders traded not in material goods, but dreams and wishes and—
“Twenty years. Twenty years of my life. Taken not from the end, but the prime.”
Nesryn scanned the man, his face just beginning to show the signs of age, the hair still without gray—
“I am twenty-seven,” Falkan said to her. “And yet I now appear to be a man of nearly fifty.”
Holy gods. “What are you doing at the aerie, then?” Nesryn demanded. “Do the spiders here produce the silk, too?”
“They are not so civilized as their sisters in the north,” Houlun said, clicking her tongue. “The kharankui do not create—only destroy. Long have they dwelled in their caves and passes of the Dagul Fells, in the far south of these mountains. And long have we maintained a respectful distance.”
“Why do you think they now come to steal our eggs?” Sartaq glanced to the few ruks lingering at the cave mouth, waiting for their riders. He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs.
“Who else?” the hearth-mother countered. “No poachers have been spotted. Who else might sneak upon a ruk’s nest, so high in the world? I flew over their domain these past few days. The webs indeed have grown from the peaks and passes of the Fells down to the pine forests in the ravines, choking off all life.” A glance toward Falkan. “I do not believe it mere coincidence that the kharankui have again begun preying upon the world at the same time a merchant seeks out our aerie for answers regarding their northern kin.”
Falkan raised his hands at Sartaq’s sharp look. “I have not sought them out nor provoked them. I heard whispers of your hearth-mother’s trove of knowledge and thought to seek her counsel before I dared anything.”
“What do you want with them?” Nesryn asked, angling her head.
Falkan examined his hands, flexing the fingers as if they were stiff. “I want my youth back.”
Houlun said to Sartaq, “He sold his hundred yards but still thinks he can reclaim the time.”
“I can reclaim it,” Falkan insisted, earning a warning glare from Houlun at his tone. He checked himself, and clarified, “There are … things that I still have left to do. I should like to accomplish them before old age interferes. I was told that slaying the spider who ate my twenty years was the only way to return those lost years to me.”
Nesryn’s brows narrowed. “Why not go hunt that spider back home, then? Why come here?”
Falkan didn’t answer.
Houlun said, “Because he was also told that only a great warrior can slay a kharankui. The greatest in the land. He heard of our close proximity to the terrors and thought to try his luck here first—to learn what we know about the spiders; perhaps how to kill them.” A faintly bemused look. “Perhaps also to find some backdoor way of reclaiming his years, an alternate route here, to spare him the confrontation there.”
A sound enough plan for a man insane enough to barter away his life in the first place.
“What does any of this have to do with the stolen eggs and hatchlings, Ej?” Sartaq, too, apparently possessed little sympathy for the merchant who’d traded his youth for kingly wealth. Falkan turned his face toward the fire, as if well aware of that.
“I want you to find them,” Houlun said.
“They have likely already died, Ej.”
“Those horrors can keep their prey alive long enough in their cocoons. But you are right—they have likely already been consumed.” Rage flickered in the woman’s face, a vision of the warrior beneath; the warrior her granddaughter was becoming as well. “Which is why I want you to find them the next time it happens. And remind those unholy piles of filth that we do not take kindly to theft of our young.” She jerked her chin to Falkan. “When they go, you will go, too. See if the answers you seek are there.”
“Why not go now?” Nesryn asked. “Why not seek them out and punish them?”
“Because we have no proof still,” Sartaq answered. “And if we attack unprovoked …”
“The kharankui have long been the enemies of the ruks,” Houlun finished. “They warred once, long ago. Before the riders climbed up from the steppes.” She shook her head, chasing away the shadow of memory, and declared to Sartaq, “Which is why we shall keep this quiet. The last thing we need is for riders and ruks to fly out there in a rage, or fill this place with panic. Tell them to be on their guard at the nests, but do not say why.”
Sartaq nodded. “As you will it, Ej.”
The hearth-mother turned to Falkan. “I would have a word with my captain.”
Falkan understood the dismissal and rose. “I am at your disposal, Prince Sartaq.” With a graceful bow, he strode off into the hall.
When Falkan’s steps had faded, Houlun murmured, “It is starting anew, isn’t it?” Those dark eyes slid to Nesryn, the fire gilding the whites. “The One Who Sleeps has awoken.”
“Erawan,” Nesryn breathed. She could have sworn the great fire banked in answer.
“You know of him, Ej?” Sartaq moved to sit on the woman’s other side, allowing Nesryn to scoot closer down the stone bench.
But the hearth-mother swept her sharp stare over Nesryn. “You have faced them. His beasts of shadow.”
Nesryn clamped down on the memories that surfaced. “I have. He’s built an army of terrors on the northern continent. In Morath.”
Houlun turned toward Sartaq. “Does your father know?”
“Bits and pieces. His grief …” Sartaq watched the fire. Houlun placed a hand on the prince’s knee. “There was an attack in Antica. On a healer of the Torre.”
Houlun swore, as filthily as her hearth-son.
“We think one of Erawan’s agents might be behind it,” Sartaq went on. “And rather than waste time convincing my father to listen to half-formed theories, I remembered your tales, Ej, and thought to see if you might know anything.”
“And if I told you?” A searching, sharp look—fierce as a ruk’s gaze. “If I told you what I know of the threat, would you empty every aerie and nest? Would you fly across the Narrow Sea to face them—to never return?”
Sartaq’s throat bobbed. And Nesryn realized that he had not come here for answers.
Perhaps Sartaq already knew enough about the Valg to decide for himself about how to face the threat. He had come here to win over his people—this woman. He might command the ruks in the eyes of his father, the empire. But in these mountains, Houlun’s word was law.
And in that fourth peak, on Arundin’s silent slopes … Her daughter’s sulde stood in the wind. A woman who understood the cost of life—deeply. Who might not be so eager to let her granddaughter ride with the legion. If she allowed the Eridun rukhin to leave at all.
“If the kharankui are stirring, if Erawan has risen in the north,” Sartaq said carefully, “it is a threat for all to face.” He bowed his head. “But I would hear what you know, Ej. What perhaps even the kingdoms in the north might have lost to time and destruction. Why it is that our people, tucked away in this land, know such stories when the ancient demon wars never reached these shores.”
Houlun surveyed them, her long, thick braid swaying. Then she braced a hand on the stone and rose, groaning. “I must eat first, and rest awhile. Then I shall tell you.” She frowned toward the cave mouth, the silvery sheen of sunlight staining the walls. “A storm is coming. I outran it on the flight back. Tell the others to prepare.”
With that, the hearth-mother strode from the warmth of the pit and into the hall beyond. Her steps were stiff, but her back was straight. A warrior’s pace, clipped and unfaltering.
But instead of aiming for the round table or the kitchens, Houlun entered a door that Nesryn had marked as leading into the small library.
“She is our Story Keeper,” Sartaq explained, following Nesryn’s attention. “Being around the texts helps to tunnel into her memory.”
Not just a hearth-mother who knew the rukhin’s history, but a sacred Story Keeper—a rare gift for remembering and telling the legends and histories of the world.
Sartaq rose, groaning himself as he stretched. “She’s never wrong about a storm. We should spread the word.” He pointed to the hall behind them. “You take the interior. I’ll go to the other peaks and let them know.”
Before Nesryn could ask who, exactly, she should approach, the prince stalked for Kadara.
She frowned. Well, it would seem that she’d only have her own thoughts for company. A merchant hunting for spiders that might help him reclaim his youth, or at least learn how he might take it back from their northern kin. And the spiders themselves … Nesryn shuddered to think of those things crawling here, of all places, to feed on the most vulnerable. Monsters out of legend.
Perhaps Erawan was summoning all the dark, wicked things of this world to his banner.
Rubbing her hands as if she could implant the heat of the flame into her skin, Nesryn headed into the aerie proper.
A storm was coming, she was to tell any who crossed her path.
But she knew one was already here.
The storm struck just after nightfall. Great claws of lightning ripped at the sky, and thunder shuddered through every hall and floor.
Seated around the fire pit, Nesryn glanced to the distant cave mouth, where mighty curtains had been drawn across the space. They billowed and puffed in the wind, but remained anchored to the floor, parting only slightly to allow glimpses of the rain-lashed night.
Just inside them, three ruks sat curled in what seemed to be nests of straw and cloth: Kadara, a fierce brown ruk that Nesryn had been told belonged to Houlun, and a smaller ruk with a reddish-dun coloring. The tiniest ruk belonged to Borte—a veritable runt, the girl had called her at dinner, even as she’d beamed with pride.
Nesryn stretched out her aching legs, grateful for the heat of the fire and the blanket Sartaq had dropped in her lap. She’d spent hours going up and down the aerie stairs, telling whoever she encountered that Houlun had said a storm approached.
Some had given her thankful nods and hurried off; others had offered hot tea and small samplings of whatever they were cooking in their hearths. Some asked where Nesryn had come from, why she was here. And whenever she explained that she had come from Adarlan but that her people hailed from the southern continent, their replies were all the same: Welcome home.
The trek up and down the various stairs and sloped halls had taken its toll, along with the hours of training that morning. And by the time Houlun settled herself on the bench between Nesryn and Sartaq—Falkan and Borte having drifted off to their own rooms after dinner—Nesryn was near nodding off.
Lightning cracked outside, limning the hall with silver. For long minutes, as Houlun stared into the fire, there was only the grumble of thunder and the howl of the wind and the patter of the rain, only the crackle of the fire and rustling of ruk’s wings.
“Stormy
nights are the domain of Story Keepers,” Houlun intoned in Halha. “We can hear one approaching from a hundred miles away, smell the charge in the air like a hound on a scent. They tell us to prepare, to ready for them. To gather our kin close and listen carefully.”
The hair on Nesryn’s arms rose beneath the warmth of her wool coat.
“Long ago,” Houlun continued, “before the khaganate, before the horse-lords on the steppes and the Torre by the sea, before any mortal ruled these lands … A rip appeared in the world. In these very mountains.”
Sartaq’s face was unreadable as his hearth-mother spoke, but Nesryn swallowed.
A rip in the world—an open Wyrdgate. Here.
“It opened and closed swiftly, no more than a flash of lightning.”
As if in answer, veins of forked lightning lit the sky beyond.
“But that was all that was needed. For the horrors to enter. The kharankui, and other beasts of shadow.”
The words echoed through Nesryn.
The kharankui—the stygian spiders … and other infiltrators. None of them ordinary beasts at all.
But Valg.
Nesryn was grateful she was already sitting. “The Valg were here?” Her voice was too loud, too ordinary in the storm-filled silence.
Sartaq gave Nesryn a warning look, but Houlun only nodded, a jab of the chin. “Most of the Valg left, summoned northward when more hordes appeared there. But this place … perhaps the Valg that arrived here were a vanguard, who assessed this land and did not find what they were seeking. So they moved out. But the kharankui remained in the mountain passes, servants to a dark crown. They did not leave. The spiders learned the tongues of men as they ate the fools stupid enough to venture into their barren realm. Some who made it out claimed they remained because the Fells reminded them of their own, blasted world. Others said the spiders lingered to guard the way back—to wait for that door to open up again. And to go home.
“War waged in the east, in the ancient Fae realms. Three demon kings against a Fae Queen and her armies. Demons that passed through a door between worlds to conquer our own.”
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