by Lexy Wolfe
The bard made a vaguely affirmative sound, eyes scanning the gathered. “You know who will when he finally reveals all of his blessings.”
Ash’s smile faded. “Yes. I wish I did not feel so uneasy about it. Now that we are here, I have the irrational desire to hide Terrence away.” He growled, rubbing his fingers against his scalp. “Storm’s bad feelings and inability to scry does not help assuage my own worries.”
The bard put a hand on the mage’s shoulder. “It is not irrational to wish to keep someone you care about safe. But we all know nothing in Desantiva is safe. Better he face it now with us at his side than alone.” Ash only nodded in agreement, forcing himself to master his anxiety.
As the last of the horses were brought off the ship, the Vodani nearly fell over themselves offering food, drink, shelter and more than a few their beds…as well as their company. The northborn members of the tribe deferred with as much politeness as possible. With cheeks deepening their red color, Taylin mounted her horse, taking Izkynder from Tyrsan and settling him in front of her. “I forgot how, ah, bold Mureln’s people are.”
Lyra stared at the brown landscape sprinkled with motes of green with wide-eyed horror. “Oh, great mother,” she whispered, clasping the heavy family pendant she wore.
Skyfire rode to her side, touching her arm. “Beloved?”
“You shared memories to show this to me, but I still did not understand…I couldn’t comprehend. I don’t know if I do now and I see it for myself.” She looked at him with a tragic expression. “Is all of this land like this?”
“Some,” he replied with a shrug. “It has improved since Storm and I left. There is more life to be seen than before.” She flicked a glance at him, then hugged herself. She made a gesture and quiet prayer to the Knowing One.
“It is very different than I remember,” Bella stated, letting Jaison help her get her gear fastened to her horse’s saddle. “The Ancestral Pain is not as…angry. Or as pained.”
“The Psia Re feels confused,” he muttered, eyes on his work. “I cannot find any word other than ‘unsettled’ to describe what I feel.” He scanned the horizon further into the interior. “I do not like it. Something is not right.”
A ripple of alarm emanated from Terrence and Skyfire as both men grabbed their shoulders. They traded looks of shock. “Alanis, we must to get to First Home!” Skyfire stated as he pulled his growling drizzen in before she attacked one of the Vodani who fell trying to back away.
Ash frowned. “What is going on? What’s wrong?”
“Do not question! It will only waste time.” Storm rode next to her lifemate, holding her hand out to him. “The Totani will share no more than what they have already. We must create a portal.”
The mage accepted her hand, transferring from his horse to the drizar. His frown reflected concern for his lifemate as he settled behind her. “Are you able to—?”
“I have told you many times, duty must always come first to the mortal servants of gods! A portal will not kill me,” she snapped. In a less angry tone, she squeezed his hand. “I will be fine, beloved. I have you and drizar to watch over me.” She turned to Terrence. “Can they tell us any more?”
He nodded, looking to the pair on the drizar, focusing on Storm. “Dzee says we must stop judgment.” The woman acknowledged the information with a nod, lacing her fingers through Ash’s.
“The tribes must know this is portal is not a Forentan attack!” She looked behind her to the others. “Skyfire and Sumyr first! Warriors follow their lead.”
Vodani reacted in wonder and fear when the portal opened with a dragon’s roar, staring as the Dusvet Guardians raced through the portal. It crashed closed the moment the drizar crossed the barrier, leaving behind utterly confused people who were silent for only a heartbeat before they began speaking to each other excitedly.
TENTS FILLED FIRST Home for the Time of Gathering, banners cracking like whips in the hot winds. The entire population swarmed a raised platform where a fair-haired man hung limply from chains around his wrists. His lightly tanned skin was marked with bruises and cuts from stones that had already struck him. In front of him four Swordanzen fought a losing battle trying to protect him from the mob’s attacks.
Desanti screamed and tried to back away when the portal yawned wide behind the pillars holding the chained man. The eerie, unearthly howl nearly smothered the screams of people that shifted from fear to anger. Cries of “Defilers!” and “They come at last!” echoed off the towering butte’s wall.
As the mob recovered and began to surge forward, Skyfire and Terrence dropped off their mounts, drawing their blades across their palms and driving the weapons into the rock.
Silence swallowed the angry crowds when a crack of deafening thunder ripped the air. The great silver mountain cat and mirror-hided wyvern appeared next to their humans, both roaring in fury at the mob as the portal collapsed behind them, but they remained.
Whispers of “Totani!” and “Dusvet Guardians!” rippled through the crowd, the murderous madness faltering with fearful reverence of the divine servants’ presence.
Despite the pressure in his skull from the portal spell, Ash looked to the object of the Desanti’s ire and felt his heart almost stop. He nearly fell sliding off the drizar’s back in his haste to reach the chained man. “Nolyn?!” He got under his shoulders to take his dead weight off his wrists. The battered mage groaned as he roused. “My gods, what are you doing here?”
The other mage managed a weak smile despite the swelling and bleeding of cuts and bruises he had sustained. “Ash? Thank gods…you’re here.” His head fell forward as he passed out.
Tyrsan and Jaison got under Nolyn, flinching only a little when the shackles shattered under Ash’s spell and easing him to the ground. “We have him,” the former Dulain told the Illaini as Taylin ran to them and slid on her knees by Nolyn’s side, putting her hands on him. He nodded in Storm’s direction. “Stop her! Or we’ll lose her to her fury.” Ash spun to see his lifemate stalking toward the crowd, tiny flickers of flame dancing around her head.
A handful of warriors stood their ground as the rest of the Desanti backed away as fast as those behind them moved. “Traitor! You defend defilers?” a woman demanded. “You have betrayed—” Storm cut the woman’s accusations short by grabbing her by the throat. Nails dug into flesh, blood oozing around her fingers.
“I have done nothing. You have desecrated the Time of Gathering with violence,” she intoned. The woman desperately clawed at her hand. “You have brought dishonor to the Heart of Desantiva. All of you!” She began crushing the woman’s throat, her eyes fixed on the crowd. “The price for that is death!”
“Storm! No!” Ash got in front of the small woman, trying to get through her blind rage. She stared as if he were not even there. “Aelia, stop! Please, don’t do this!” He put his hands on her face, forcing her to meet his eyes. “You said the Raging One’s edicts have no exceptions. If you kill during the Time of Gathering, you condemn yourself to the same fate as them!”
Her glare was barely human. “Stop? They betrayed my father. They betrayed our ancestors! They must be purged before their taint further contaminates the people.” Screams of terror filled the air as Desanti panicked in their efforts to flee.
“Stop it!” She blinked once at his shout. In a quieter but no less intense voice, he begged, “Please, Aelia. I can’t lose you.”
Dzee turned toward the pair. “The Heart of Desantiva will allow punishment to wait until after the Time of Gathering, Daughter. Stay your hand.”
With an undercurrent of a snarl, Kailee added, “They are unimportant. My brother needs you more.”
Storm released the warrior woman with such abruptness she dropped to the ground, unconscious but alive. Ash caught his lifemate when she turned toward the Totani and nearly fell, her knees weak. “What is wrong with Thandar? Why won’t he speak to me?” She reached out to the mountain cat. “Kailee. Tell me why. Please!” The cat turned away and
disappeared.
“Come home, Daughter,” Dzee said, apology in her voice as she, too, departed. Ash kept his arm tight around Storm as the fury that had given her strength drained away.
“Tell me,” Storm begged in a whisper on the edge of tears.
He hushed her, guiding her back to the drizar. “We will find out, Aelia.” The animal crouched, watching the two as he got her settled. Ash thumped his shoulder, keeping a hand out to steady Storm as he rose. “Guard her well.” The beast chuffed, bobbing his head.
Skyfire stood, ritually returning his blade to its sheath. He fixed bright gold eyes on the crowd. The sight of Su’alin eyes terrified those few remaining who could see them. “Go! Return to your tents. Before our lord changes His mind,” he warned. Few hesitated to obey the order. He turned to the Swordanzen who had been protecting Nolyn and froze in shocked recognition. “Rengi?”
The younger man displayed his right shoulder to Skyfire to show the black jackal mark. “Githalin Swordanzen Seeker il’Anibu.” They threw their arms around each other in a fierce embrace. “And you are Dusvet Guardian now! I have never been so pleased to know the treewalker tales were no exaggerations.” As they parted, he glanced at Terrence as the mage put his knife away. “Anibu says the wyvern is Dzee, a Totani who had been lost since the Great War? I never heard of her.”
“Yes. They would not speak of her because remembering pained the Raging One.” He gestured toward Ash and Terrence. “The mages aided in her return to Lord Desantiva when Almek Two-Tones brought them.” He frowned as he realized, “You have been north?” Seeker nodded. “Why?”
“The best one to answer that would be our—“
“Nolyn!”
“Master!”
Star and Marcus ran onto the platform, hugging the recovering mage in relief. The man smiled weakly, putting an arm around each.
Skyfire stared. “Kiya?”
The slight woman looked up, pushed her face-covering veil back, utter joy on her delicate features. “Radisen!” She ran to him, jumping up to wrap her arms around his neck. “Oh, Radisen, I have missed you!”
He started to embrace her tightly until he realized there was an infant nestled in a carrier on her back. Her skin not quite as dark as Kiya’s, a shock of black hair topped her head and bright blue eyes shone up at the man. He looked between his sister and Nolyn. Her eyes reflected worry about his reaction. “He is my lifemate. This is our daughter Laurel.”
“I see.” He smiled wanly. “He makes you happy?”
“He does,” she said softly. “Nolyn does not look on me with fear. He meets my eyes without a veil! And Citali approves of him.” She lowered her gaze. “That is why the tribes turned on us. I broke too many patterns and failed in my task to find you and Githalin Storm.” She bared her right shoulder, uncovering the Totani mark of Citali.
His eyes went wide. “You are Githalin? We have much to discuss.”
The familiar thwip of a loosed arrow ended in a shriek from the woman Storm had nearly killed. The blonde archer stood perfectly still, her bow held up in the pause after her taken shot. She startled when Jaison grabbed her wrist. “Lyra, what are you doing?”
Bella interrupted. “Jaison, wait!” The Desanti woman writhed in agony, the arrow sunk into her thigh. Bella hurried to her, putting a hand on her head. She yanked, pulling a shadowy wisp out, the woman falling unconscious. “Ugh, gods, I hate touching these things,” she grumbled, shuddering after banishing the darkling. “Good instincts, Lyra.”
The fair archer blushed, looking away as she lowered her bow. “It was Storm’s instincts, not mine. I could not imagine Desanti would ever defy the Raging One’s edicts unless instigated. Or defy Storm like that. No one could be that stupid. And then when she got up as though Storm hadn’t hurt her…I knew something was wrong.”
Seeker chuckled. “Pick up your jaw, brother.” He looked at the nearly emptied square, seeing some bolder Desanti peeking around hiding places to observe the unexpected force. “Let us go to the Hall of Remembrance. As you said. There is much to discuss and there is little place more sacred, or quiet, than there.”
Taking over the massive chamber, the two groups broke apart, aware they were too worn out coherently exchange information as a single group. No one argued with the drizar when he and Skyfire’s drizzen followed them into the secluded area within the butte, the pair remaining close to Storm.
The woman fidgeted, too exhausted to move, but equally too upset to relax. Ash knelt by her, caressing her hair, his hushed voice gentle. “Beloved, get some rest.”
“But Thandar needs me,” she whispered, struggling to keep her eyes open. “He is not silent because he is angry with me. Something is wrong. I need to go—”
“I know.” He caressed her cheek, tilting her face up. “And we will go. But we need to rest so we can face whatever is ahead of us and ensure the tribes are safe. If there was one darkling, there may be others lurking.”
She closed her eyes. “I should have been here,” she whispered. “If I had not left Father—”
Ash frowned at the guilt in her voice. “If you had never left, you would not have been here at all. The Raging One would still be chained.” He leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “You are drained from creating the portal and stopping your people from killing my brother. And you are still healing from…” He searched for a turn of phrase that did not fault her. “…protecting the tribe from the ancient trinity.”
“‘Protecting the tribe’?” Storm managed a weak smile. “My pride does not need so much coddling.”
“Not coddling. Pampering. And you deserve all the love and pampering I can give you. More than that.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Drizar and Skyfire’s drizzen will watch over you. There are no harpy vultures here.” He draped his robe around her shoulders. “Sleep.” With a sigh, she finally conceded and tugged his robe closer, closing her eyes and falling asleep with his scent around her.
He looked up when Lyra’s shadow fell over him and Storm. “I’ll sit with them.” She offered a smile to the drizar. “I can bring them water if they need. The air is insanely dry here.” He nodded in appreciation and went to join his spirit brother where he sat alone.
Nolyn glanced at the other mage as he dropped to sit by him. “I guess Ellis didn’t get the message to you I was going to be here.”
Ash rested his head against the rock wall, closing his eyes as he draped his arms on his drawn-up knees. A small, wry smile curled his lips. “Considering how uncharacteristically vague his missives had been, I suspect that Mother had been having Zoe look over his shoulder.”
“Ah.” Nolyn mimicked his brother’s posture, eyes half open to watch the others. “Just as well, I suppose. A letter would not have done justice to everything that happened since you left.” He looked at the other’s profile. “Almek?”
“We succeeded. The Timeless One has forbidden him from leaving Her territory until he has fully recovered. It will be several years, I expect. The effort nearly cost Storm and I our lives, though.” Tension lined his face. “She shared in the backlash on using temporal energies, possibly took the brunt of my chlayxin. It almost tore her apart physically and left her locked into her mind until Jaison manipulated time just enough so she mended partially. She was blind for several weeks until the Timeless One aided her directly.”
Nolyn’s eyes opened, staring at Ash, unsure what to say. The other man almost smiled, his eyes still closed. “Forgive me for any torture you endured because of me. I have been a poor brother to you.”
“Feh.” Nolyn closed his eyes again. “It is not like I had been much better over the years. Especially a few, ah, brushes with death I had while you were gone.” Ash just looked at him from the corner of his eye, then shook his head. Nolyn opened his eyes in slits, looking at Ash sideways. “How did you know I was in trouble? I’d done my best to hide it so you were not distracted. Not that I knew you were on your way here.”
“Apparently, the
Totani felt it was vital enough to tell us to get here. Storm knew where to go simply from Terrence telling her we needed to stop judgment.” He opened his eyes, gazing at the innumerable mosaics covering the wall. Pieces of glass or polished stone or metal itself inset into the stone spoke to the history of the Desanti since the Great War. “I keep forgetting how ruthless and merciless Aelia’s people can be.”
Nolyn sighed quietly. “They are intolerant of betrayal. After what our ancestors had done to them, it is hard to blame them.”
“I agree.” Ash shifted his gaze from his lifemate to the Desanti. “Instead of eliminating the threat the warriors posed, they created their worst nightmare. It is a miracle any of the Desanti can stay their hand when they see a Forentan.”
“It feels as though time had stopped for them. The anger, the fear, every feeling from the Great War lives. Even when I was certain they were going to kill me out there, I could not bring myself to raise a hand to them. It was hardly their fault.” He shook his head. “It was my own naïvete and arrogance that nearly got me killed.”
Ash frowned. “What happened that they desecrated one of their most sacred times?”
“I, ah, rather upended their world.” Reaching around, he took out the bright knife with desert-style markings, offering it to his brother to examine.
He blinked at the hilt. “This is Citali’s symbol, isn’t it?”
“Mm hm.”
“Isn’t he the Totani that dwells in the realm of the dead?”
“He is, indeed.” Nolyn pressed his lips together. “But with a ‘defiler’ bearing an impossible blade with his image and a woman not Swordanzen with a Githalin mark, they were confused. It was easy for them to be convinced that instead of a Desanti miracle happening beyond their borders, it was Forentan deception or corruption. A prelude to a new attack on their suffering land.
“You cannot imagine the fear I saw in their eyes when we arrived, Ash. It was much as I imagine how I look at lupines ever since what happened in Market Circle.” He sighed heavily. “After meeting Storm and Skyfire, then Star, Seeker and the others, I never thought they would look at my apprentice and I as the same monsters who devastated this land.”