The vision before him strained against reality, wavering behind the mists as if contained in some bubble he had but to reach out and burst. The violet fog swirled at his feet, raising a momentary panic associated with each of Kherron’s resurrections. But he had not died, and he had not seen such affirming visions within the realm of stagnation and chaos. A small pressure built in the back of his mind and quickly faded—the only thing to signal the escape from his doomed eternity.
Blinking against the richness of life and color, of the earth he could actually see and feel beneath his boots and the breeze that now caressed his warm cheek, Kherron found himself stunned into a blankness of all thought. Birdsong erupted all around him, as if the creatures celebrated his return, and he fell to his knees, too weak to stand amidst such an unfathomable marvel. His fingers dug into the soft, damp soil, the lush grass like feathered hair against his palms, and he thought he heard the earth sigh in joy at their reunion.
Such a thought did not surprise or discomfort him as it might have before forty-eight deaths—even before merely one. He welcomed the sound, his breath hitching in his throat as he doubled over against the soil and touched his burning forehead to the cool earth. He felt the tremor of the rushing waterfall before him and its calming journey downstream. He smelled the life-giving freshness of clear, cool water, recognizing the essence of it in the scent of his own tears spilling down his cheeks and into the dirt. The sun warmed his curved back like a lover’s hand, and the leaves rustling above him echoed their laughter in exaltation.
“I hear you,” he whispered through his tears, speaking to himself and the glory surrounding him. “I hear you. I’m listening.”
Kherron had given himself—all his hope and all his despair—to an eternity of severed nothingness. And now he was free.
Chapter 19
Just beyond the light of the waning gibbous moon, a bird fluttered into the highest branches of a spruce. The jay, gray feathers tucked closely to his sides, tilted his head to listen and wait. He had traveled far to find this place, though he could not yet rest in the dark. With tiny black eyes, he searched the cliff face. The dark mouth of a small cave lay nestled in the mountainside, barely discernable even with such bright moonlight. But the jay knew what to look for; he had been here before.
With another silent flutter of his short wings, the bird descended to the forest carpet of browning grass and fallen twigs, then hopped into the cave upon light feet. The air was warmer here, protected from the chilling nights of autumn’s arrival and strengthened by the slow, heavy breath of the beast curled against the far wall.
The jay approached this new creature, recognizing her by her scent as one of his own. He caught another odor of fresh water and flesh, then pecked at the beast’s coarse hair for a forgotten morsel of raw fish. He was delicate, of course, but she was not entirely asleep. Her mouth twitched when the jay cleaned her dinner from her face, then the huge brown bear shifted.
The bird hopped back with a soft whistle, waiting until the bear had lifted herself to sit back on her haunches. Nestling against the cold stone of the cave floor as if it were a nest, the jay ruffled his feathers until he was a bird no more but a man. The dimples at his cheeks and the bright alertness of his eyes beneath sandy hair made him seem a young man, though deceivingly; he had lived upon this earth far longer than the adventurous youths who might have called him their peer. Sitting cross-legged with his hands folded in his lap, the man smiled at his companion. The bear merely blinked sleepily at him.
“Have you heard them?” he asked, his low voice echoing in the cave. The brown bear did not move. “News from the west at the southern border. I imagine everyone has heard it but you.” The low chuff of his companion’s impatience sent a ripple of hot breath over him, ruffling his hair back from his forehead. “Well you never come to the clanning anymore. That’s not my fault.” Rubbing his arms for a moment to beat the new chill seeping through his grey tunic, the man nodded. “Still, I thought you should know. One of the Blood still walks.” Wrinkling her nose, the bear stared at him, then slumped back to the cave floor with a sigh. “Whether or not you wish to do anything about it, you can’t deny you’ve felt the change. We all have. I won’t beg you to answer the call. But if we wish to return to ourselves...” The man shrugged. “Well, you understand what must be done. Will you come this time if I ask you to join me?” Unmoving, the brown bear stared at the man in her den, breathing slowly, but did nothing else.
“No,” the man continued, then exhaled and rose to his feet. When he stood close enough once more to touch the beast with his bare hand, he did. His fingers spread gently into the thick coat at her massive, rounded shoulder. “A few of us saw our charge at the pool a day south of here. He was pushed through the doorway. When he finds his way back—and he will—he will need the kind of guide who has seen the void.” He dug his fingers deeper into the coarse brown fur in a gesture of reassurance and farewell. “There are men beyond the river. So it would be wise to hide one’s pelt.”
With a gentle pat, he removed his hand from the hulking bear’s huge shoulder and turned toward the mouth of the cave. She made no noise behind him, but he didn’t look back. She had set an example for all of them that way.
The moon spilled its light upon his grey tunic as he stepped into the open air. When the man raised his arms to the sky, the jay took off in flight, a darting shadow against the silver glow suspended above. Now he could rest, his one personal and long-standing duty fulfilled.
...To Be Continued...
In Volume III of The Unclaimed Trilogy
Sacrament of Dehlyn
Read on for the first chapter of the third and final installment.
Chapter 1
When he heard the first whisper of dawn within the mortal realm, Fehl glanced at the Unclaimed and prepared for her return. Though he had only recently been charged with her guardianship, he recognized the pain of silence and the long-suffering imprisonment behind her eyes. He’d felt it himself for centuries, and he was one of the many who did not forget. They would never forget.
His torment had been blistered open anew when he’d felt Wohl’s passing from not only the mortal realm but all the others in which the amarach existed. The agony had sliced through Fehl himself, just as it had sundered the essence of all their kind. He could not speak for the Aetherius, who still, after all this time, ferociously defended their irrelevant exile. Most likely, they had rejoiced in the elimination of the Unclaimed’s previous guardian; he could not imagine the agony of such a blasphemous, mortal betrayal would be enough to sway their obstinate resolution. They were masochists, the Aetherius, cowards who had grown too fond of their own forsaken duty to allow the rest of them peace and freedom once more.
When those who had renounced their endless relegation had converged the night of Wohl’s undoing, Fehl had been one of four selected to accept the new guardianship. The Unclaimed herself had chosen him from among them, and though he could not fathom her reasons for doing so, he would never have thought to refuse. He had loved Wohl, and side by side, they had fought with the others to protect what little dignity and autonomy remained to them after such an age of oppression.
Wohl had understood many things that Fehl admittedly did not—things the amarach guardian knew would take him decades of duty and misfortune to learn. But he had accepted his new obligation with deference and fortitude, and he understood enough of what would now be required of him. Many things he’d come to acknowledge during the centuries of the Unclaimed’s protection—the pain of a broken spirit; the pulsing, aching struggle of endless knowing, forever contained and yet still inaccessible; the eternal despair of his Aetherius brethren, caused by his own hand when he delivered their final end himself; and the raging, unyielding blaze of his vengeance.
This he thought had ebbed over time, but Wohl’s discarded sacrifice had brought such urges flaring back to life within the guardian. The mortal Wanderer had offered Fehl the only tonic that would slake s
uch a newly awakened thirst, and the expectation of avenging the slain amarach made his impending duty to return the Unclaimed that much more bearable. Laws were laws, and while the pact he’d made with the Wanderer had not been his to accede, no doctrine prevented him from what he intended within the mortal realm.
The pull of his duty consumed him, his sensitivity to their rising sun stronger than it had ever been before he’d become her new guardian. With a deep breath, he stepped through the hidden Reach—where she received her solitude—and approached the Unclaimed. They did not need words in this place, and he imagined the necessity for them would remain small and sparse. The Unclaimed possessed everything the amarach no longer knew—Aetherius and defenders alike—and rarely sought another’s counsel. Wohl had told him this once, far enough in their past to have been another lifetime.
She turned toward Fehl, her green eyes a beacon of power within the Reach, calling to him, and briefly closed them. When he stood beside her, the Unclaimed placed a pale hand upon his bare arm with a nod. Fehl covered her hand with his own, and when he spread his wings, he accepted the Light for them both.
The Light had forever known where to deliver its amarach supplicants, for eons and without fail; had it not, Fehl’s desire to receive the Wanderer’s promise would have driven them forcefully enough. When they arrived in the Wanderer’s fortress and the Light withdrew, Fehl found his own scowl mirrored in the old man’s furious defiance even before he knew something was wrong.
The Unclaimed’s touch remained upon his arm longer than usual, and he felt the pressure of her gentle squeeze bidding him to contain himself. She too gazed at the aged mortal, though the Wanderer seemed unable to glance away from Fehl’s burning stare. This only fueled the amarach’s anger.
“I expected you not to have received us alone,” Fehl growled, barely acknowledging the Unclaimed’s strengthening pressure on his arm in response.
“As did I,” the Wanderer replied, and the corner of his mouth twitched with restraint. “It seems we have both been played false.”
“Speak plainly.” Fehl would have lunged at the man without the Unclaimed’s silent, unyielding command holding him back.
The old man cleared his throat. “The Ouroke deceived me. She is gone, and I cannot deliver her to you.”
Fehl’s wings lurched from their resting place at his back, his fury taunting him to disobey the law governing what little composure he maintained. This man had promised him the last Ouroke—the blasphemous woman who had so brazenly crushed the seed of Wohl’s existence—to do with as he pleased. And now, either the Wanderer had dared break their pact to aid the Ouroke in her escape, or he was enough of an imbecile to let her slip through his fingers. Fehl took only a little pleasure in the fleeting glimmer of fear behind the old man’s eyes as he flinched away from the amarach’s aggression.
“Torrahs,” the Unclaimed said, and her soft voice drew Fehl’s duty back into his awareness. “You make promises you cannot keep, and you endanger what little credibility you still possess. This will not end well for you.”
A tremor went through the old man at her words; he clearly understood the difference between a threat and the truth. “I know,” he replied, gripping his staff in a tight fist. “I apologize.”
Fehl grunted. “Your apology means nothing—”
“His apology will suffice,” the Unclaimed interrupted, her voice barely rising above normal speaking volume. “For now. If the Wanderer cannot reclaim his honor and the value of his word, his apology will become his—” Her grip tightened on Fehl’s forearm in a way he’d never experienced, her nails digging into his immortal flesh. She staggered backwards, as if having been dealt an invisible blow, and her eyes widened in terror and disbelief. For a moment, the Unclaimed trembled, fighting something he could not see, and then a piercing cry rose from her throat. Her hand left Fehl’s arm, and she sank to her knees.
The amarach kneeled beside her, resting a hand on her back because he didn’t know what else to do. He’d never seen such fear in the Unclaimed, and he could not begin to guess its cause. Instead, Fehl bent to search her gaze, and she slowly lifted her head to look at him, green eyes wide again and glistening with incomprehensible tears.
“I can’t... I can’t feel him,” she whispered. She studied Fehl’s face, then her eyes darted about the dark room, as if looking for something there no one else could find. A shuddering breath escaped her. “He lives, but I... I no longer see.” She fumbled for Fehl’s hand, like a blind woman seeking reassurance, and the strength behind her grasp overwhelmed the amarach with her grief.
“Kherron?” Torrahs asked.
Fehl jerked his head up to fix the old man with a burning stare. The Wanderer had the gall to presume this had anything to do with him, and the amarach dared him to press the matter.
“What does this mean?” Torrahs spoke quickly now, staring at the Unclaimed and clearly wary of her unexpected response. “Is he still coming? Were we wrong?”
Slowly, the Unclaimed raised her head toward the old man, her cheeks red and stained with tears. “I don’t...” And as expected, as the course of her existence dictated until the end, the Unclaimed retreated, pulled back inside the vessel of her physical flesh, leaving the woman-child Dehlyn in her place.
The Wanderer shouted in frustration and whirled away from her, slamming the butt of his staff into the stone floor. Dehlyn whimpered in confusion and fear, her limp hand sliding out of Fehl’s, and the amarach knew he had stayed too long.
“How can you let this happen?” Torrahs yelled.
Dehlyn cringed and hugged her knees to her chest, and when Fehl stood, the only thing he wanted was to fall upon this human conjurer with all his raging might. But his duty here had ended; he was not meant to exist in this realm with the blue-eyed woman-child sharing the Unclaimed’s body. With a low growl, he glared at Torrahs, spread his wings, and accepted the Light, the sound of Dehlyn’s pitiful cries echoing behind him.
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From
Daughter of the Drackan
Book One of
Gyenona’s Children
“AND THE GREAT DRACKAN resumed its place upon the stone.” The child’s eyes sparkled with delight. Honai rolled the parchment again and set it back on the shelf. The child jumped on the bed, her dark curls bouncing between her shoulders as she pulled the skirt of her nightgown as far out as it would go. Honai laughed. “What are you doing?”
The smile the girl gave her wet nurse was fierce and wild. “I want to be a drackan.”
Honai smiled and walked to the bedside. The girl jumped high, landing blindly on her knees as the nightgown whipped over her head. Honai giggled with her, tickling the child’s body, then straightened her out on the mattress. “But I’m sure the mighty drackans are not so careless as to let their wings cover their heads?” The girl grinned, wiggling under the quilts. Honai situated her in bed and knelt. “Why do you wish so much to be a drackan?”
“They’re the greatest things that ever lived.”
Honai smoothed a lock of dark hair from the child’s face, frowning in mock consternation. “These are the same drackans I know, yes? The terrifying, ruthless brutes, who destroyed villages, ate livestock, and burned forests with their firebreath
?”
The girl patiently shook her head. “They only killed people who scared them. They only ever wanted to fly and protect their babies. And they saved the one boy who would not run from them. He believed in them, and I believe in them.” She held up her hands, casting shadows upon the bed, and pulled a face at them. “I wish I could hear their stories.”
Honai stood and straightened her skirts. There was no point in arguing with a child’s vibrant imagination, especially before bed. Especially this child. “Well, I’m sure they have their stories, my dear, but they are not for tonight. Sleep well, and perhaps you may dream of your drackans.”
“Yes,” the girl sighed, squirming in tired excitement. “And they will tell me everything.”
Honai kissed the child’s forehead but paused at the doorway to the chamber. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and the wrongness she sensed quickly became a sound. It mocked the flapping of Lord Kartney’s banner in the wind, posted high above the watchtower. Many nights, it was the only sound outside the castle. But this noise was no banner. It was louder, thicker, splitting through the air with intent. In a matter of seconds, a calm night of normalcy shredded into terror. It had finally come.
She turned toward the window, knowing the truth and fearing it all the more. There hovered a great red drackan from the High Hills, head stretched out tight on its neck, body hovering with the rhythmic beat of its wings. The drackan’s armored scales shone in the firelight—brown with a tinge of fiery, metallic red. The broad wings almost scraped against the cold outer stone of the tower as it pushed a dignified head through the opening almost too small for it. The length of its neck crossed the room toward the child’s bed.
Secret of Dehlyn (The Unclaimed Book 2) Page 23