Dusk Gate (Soul Bound Book 1)
Page 26
“I was just trying to decide if it was needed, so mind your own business,” Xandra snapped, shaking her head as she scowled. “Perhaps one of those items that makes it so I don’t need to eat would be a good idea after all.”
“Those tend to lead to certain bodily functions atrophying, which can have terrible consequences if you ever stop using the items in question,” Nef replied instantly. “I don’t recommend them.”
Xandra scowled, then headed off into the bushes on the right side of the path. Jasmine watched her go, a little surprised.
“Why is she so irritable all the time?” Naomi asked, frowning. “She’s not being as sarcastic as before, but now she’s just snapping.”
“She likes being able to have the last word, and I don’t let her,” Nef replied, shrugging. “She may be older than I am, but I have far more experience with the world. Xandra doesn’t like that, it makes her uneasy. Add to that her inability to truly connect with other people, and you have a recipe for disaster. It’s part of why I was so pleased to see she was with you. I think it’s good for her.”
“I can hear you,” Xandra called out from the bushes, sounding distinctly annoyed.
“Which means you’ll be on exactly the same page as they are,” Nef said, glancing at Jasmine and grinning. “If I thought it would do much good, I’d have a fling with Xandra myself, but I’m sure we wouldn’t work out long-term… and she rejected me twice already. One of you two would be much better for her. Maybe both, but I’m not sure about your preferences where that’s concerned.”
“What? You… you what?” Naomi sputtered, staring at Nef in shock as her cheeks reddened.
“Hm? Which part? The comment about the fling, or that one of you two would be better for her?” Nef asked curiously, and Jasmine felt heat rising into her cheeks quickly. “Or the both part?”
“All of it!” Naomi said, giving Jasmine a pleading look. “Why do you think that we’d be better for her?”
Nef laughed brightly, her grin almost infectious as she looked at them. The elf considered, then spoke gently.
“I’m about a hundred and seventy years old at this point. I could do the math to give a more precise date, but that isn’t the point. I’ve had a lot of relationships over the years, so having another brief one for a year or so wouldn’t be unusual. However, I don’t attempt that with someone who I don’t think would be happy with me long-term. Xandra is very pretty, and knowledgeable enough that I think I’d enjoy her company quite a bit, even for long periods, but I seem to put her on edge,” Nef explained, glancing at the bushes as she added, “All that said, if you ever want to give it a try, let me know, Xandra!”
“If I find a spider, I’m going to throw it at you,” Xandra announced, a note of annoyance in her voice.
“About what I thought,” Nef murmured, prompting an even deeper blush from Jasmine. “Either way, the two of you get along with her far better than I do. At the very least, she doesn’t seem to be intimidated by either of you, which is good. Couple that with the way the two of you watch her when you think no one is looking, and I’m quite certain you like her to one degree or another. I’m not sure how it would work out in the end, she is theoretically immortal, and both of you likely have lifespans measured in less than four centuries put together, but even brief, wholesome relationships are good for people. Especially people who’ve become jaded after being stuck in the lower planes for centuries.”
Jasmine felt her blush grow deeper and cleared her throat, hesitating for a moment before she spoke. “We… haven’t really discussed it much. We tried, but—”
“But some injuries are private, and take more than a few decades to heal,” Xandra interrupted frostily, stepping out of the bushes and giving Jasmine a look that made her distinctly uncomfortable. “I’ll thank you not to tear open the wounds again. Nef is well aware of what happened to me. She dragged it out of me during one of our early meetings.”
For the first time since they’d met her, Jasmine saw the warm expression on Nef’s face vanish, replaced by regret and sorrow. The redhead bowed her head slightly. “Ah, my apologies, Xandra. I didn’t realize that was why you were weeping. I will attempt to stop teasing you.”
“Don’t bother,” Xandra said, the faintest hint of weariness in her voice. “Just don’t bring those experiences up, please. I know you won’t be able to help yourself, and your pity is almost worse than your usual teasing.”
“As you like,” Nef replied, bowing her head slightly. “I do think a relationship would be good for you, though. Even if you’re afraid of losing someone again, it’d be a way to move forward in life.”
Xandra rolled her eyes, looking at Jasmine before she spoke, her tone desert dry. “This is why I avoid visiting Nef. She teases, yes, but she’s unnaturally nice for someone who knows all the horrible things that she does, and she’s an interfering busybody.”
“On the other hand, considering your attitude, if I don’t do it, who will?” Nef shot back at Xandra, who sighed heavily.
Jasmine paused for a moment, looking at Naomi, then she began to laugh, as the ridiculousness of the two finally overwhelmed her. Naomi started giggling a moment later, holding a hand over her mouth.
Xandra glared at them for a moment, folding her arms in front of her as she slowly inhaled, then spoke calmly. “I see how you are. Nef, can we please get moving? Obviously they don’t need rest that much.”
“Right! You’d best save your breath as much as you can, it’s a bit of a hike ahead of us,” the Karakar replied breezily, turning around to examine the hillside, then started forward. “If we keep moving, we’ll be up there in a jiffy!”
Naomi glanced up at the mountainside as she started to move forward again, and Jasmine followed her, with Xandra taking the rear-most position. Probably to keep them from falling behind, now that Jasmine thought about it.
“Somehow I doubt that we’re going to get there that quickly,” Naomi murmured, picking her steps carefully. Jasmine was about to reply when Xandra spoke up.
“Certainly not if you keep imitating an overladen mule or a snail. Move your posterior, priestess, or your chances with me are about as good as those of a fish in the middle of the Crystalsand desert,” Xandra said tartly, prompting a blush from Jasmine. Then she paused, looking back at Xandra.
“Wait, she has a chance with you?” Jasmine asked, her emotions twisting nervously inside her. “What about me?”
“I’d think you’d be more concerned by the fact that your homeland is under siege while we are entering another, probably hostile, plane of existence, than you are about personal relationships,” Xandra told her, arching an eyebrow skeptically. “I suppose alcohol really does cause some people’s minds to rot. Now shut up and move.”
“Um, right,” Jasmine replied, blushing as she turned back to the trail and picked up the pace.
It was only a few seconds later that she realized Xandra hadn’t said she didn’t have a chance. That brought an added spring to Jasmine’s step.
Chapter 35
“And here we are!” Nef announced cheerfully, sounding like she’d taken a brief hike rather than a punishing climb, and shaded her eyes as she looked upward at the cave before them. “The lost city of Rithevahn! Well, its entrance, but that’s how it goes.”
Xandra was breathing hard and sweating lightly, which meant she didn’t have the breath to reply immediately. And while she was in bad enough shape, the two priestesses… well, she saw Naomi teeter, then practically collapse against the wall of the cave, panting for breath. Jasmine was slightly better off, with her hands on her knees as she took slow, deep breaths.
The cave entrance wasn’t anything that would’ve drawn Xandra’s notice normally, and she used the hood of her cloak to wipe her forehead as she looked at it. After a few seconds she noticed that there were a few signs that the cave had been widened at one point, but she couldn’t gauge how long ago that might’ve been. At almost the same time Nef looked back at them.
“Perhaps you should take the majority of watches, then,” Xandra replied sardonically, taking a deep breath herself, then another. She glanced at the cave before adding, “How large was this city, anyway? I know fair folk tend not to be that populous, compared to other species, and I’ve never heard of Rithevahn.”
“You wouldn’t have. It fell approximately six hundred years ago, while you were imprisoned, and it rose only two hundred years before that,” Nef explained, her voice suddenly brisk. “It was unusually large as well, with approximately ten thousand fair folk at its height. Unfortunately, my previous visits were unable to determine why so many of them settled here all at once, nor more accurate numbers. Fair folk are notoriously hard to pin down, with how some of them live alone in several buildings, and others will live dozens to a single dwelling.”
“Ah. I… I wondered a little myself,” Jasmine managed to say, pausing before she continued a little more easily, “I wondered why I hadn’t heard about them. I mean, I heard about the war over Xandra’s valley, but nothing about the dwarves or this city.”
“That’s in large part because Loth is a humanocentric country,” Nef told Jasmine, though she gave Xandra a glance of amusement. “They concern themselves with other nations like their own, unless they’re demon worshippers. If the dwarves had been trade partners, perhaps they’d have paid more attention, but I suspect that the clan is a footnote in history books at best.”
“Not to mention that there is an immense amount of history, and only so much time to learn it between prayers,” Xandra added dryly, all while resisting the urge to needle Jasmine’s faith more. Perhaps if she’d been more faithful, she wouldn’t have ended up in the situation she’d been in, but as it was, the Dowager had likely believed that Xandra had received her just reward.
Jasmine frowned a little in response, though Xandra wasn’t entirely sure why. What Nef had said seemed reasonable to her. She’d noticed that most countries tended to place the most importance on their immediate neighbors, and beyond those, mostly the realms controlled by their own species or religion. It wasn’t unique to humans by any means.
“I don’t know. We had a lot of history books that weren’t just about humans… but Xandra has a point. I mostly got an overview of a lot of things,” Jasmine admitted at last. “Did you ever hear about these, Naomi?”
“Not a word,” the priestess said, shaking her head firmly as she straightened at last. “But you got more schooling on neighboring nations than I did, and you’ve been a priestess longer. Holy maidens are often the ambassadors to other countries, so you learned about them more than I did. I barely know anything about nations other than our neighbors, though I’ve heard of a few others, like Corval.”
“I should hope so, since we use their coinage as the basis for our own,” Jasmine replied, sounding faintly scandalized, which caused Xandra to laugh softly.
“Regardless, we were stopping for the night here, yes?” Xandra asked, focusing on Nef again. “I seem to recall you saying something about that.”
“That’s right. While I could keep going, all of you need your rest, and it’s still a decent distance to the city. Beyond which, we don’t have any idea how difficult it will be to find a location to rest in Nocturne, so it’s always best to go through the portal once we’re well-rested,” Nef agreed, taking off her pack as she stepped into the cave entrance and nodded toward the back. “The cave is relatively deep, with several side passages where we can sleep without difficulty, and it should vent the smoke from a fire easily, which is part of why I suggested coming this far. I’d rather set the fire in a spot where it won’t be directly in the wind.”
“Ah, excellent,” Xandra said, relaxing slightly. “Shall we get to it, then? I’d like to have a chance to sit down.”
“I’m all for that!” Naomi chimed in, relief filling her voice.
Jasmine and Nef laughed, while Xandra just shook her head, then got to work.
Several hours later, the fire had burned down low, and the light in the cavern was barely enough to illuminate the walls around them. Perhaps there was more light in the main cavern, but Xandra felt more secure in the passage they’d chosen to camp in. While it didn’t have another exit, she could change that with a single spell.
Nef was sitting on a blanket on the other side of the fire from Xandra, idly chewing on a twig she’d grabbed the last time she’d gone outside. Jasmine and Naomi were lying down, but from the way they were breathing, Xandra doubted they were asleep yet. That was why she was tense, listening to the occasional pop from the coals, as well as the faint sounds of night birds outside. Finally, the moment she’d been expecting arrived.
“You care about them,” Nef said in a conversational tone, looking at Xandra calmly.
“Shut it,” Xandra replied bluntly, though she knew Nef wouldn’t. The woman was as persistent as a bloodhound. Or a child who wanted a pastry.
“Don’t give me that. You care about them, or you wouldn’t be helping them this much. You haven’t complained nearly enough for them to have hired you, and I’m not sure there’s any amount of gold that would’ve hired you to take a job like this,” Nef said, brandishing the twig at Xandra. “You know enough about fair folk to know how long they keep grudges for. Money isn’t worth getting a nigh-eternal grudge, not for you.”
“Nef… would you let this go already?” Xandra asked, sitting back as she sighed, glaring at the Karakar. “You’re a lorekeeper, not a matchmaker.”
“I’m a lorekeeper who dragged every detail of your past that you could remember out of you, along with a few things that you’d forgotten until I prompted you to remember. Everything except whatever you were doing in that little valley of yours,” Nef replied calmly, returning the twig to her mouth. “I hurt you doing it. I knew it was going to hurt you, but I did it anyway, and I feel guilty about that. It’s only right that I try to repair some of that damage.”
“You don’t know because I don’t know. I don’t remember,” Xandra replied, crossing her arms in front of her as she glared back at Nef. “As for hurting me, what else is new? I deserve it. After everything I did—”
“That’s a load of bull dung, and you know it,” Nef interrupted, glaring at Xandra briefly. “Yes, you killed a lot of people, but I studied the history after you showed up asking your questions. Neither nation who claimed the valley had a right to the land, and they claimed it after the first rumors of a vein of adamantine spread. You were already established there when that happened, and they didn’t like it. You could have handled your negotiations better, as killing one of their emissaries was a poor decision, but it was still your land, for all intents and purposes. You fought to defend it. Now, I don’t know the full details of why you made the contract with Morselle, but neither do you. What I know is that no one deserves torment like what you went through. Not with deeds that were as gray as yours were.”
Jasmine had stilled, Xandra noticed, and she was tempted to cast a spell to create a thunderclap to startle the priestess half to death. Along with Naomi, who had at least feigned rolling in her sleep reasonably well. Obviously, Naomi was the better actress of the two. Still, Xandra resisted, as she probably could’ve dragged Nef outside for their conversation.
“At least you don’t call them justified,” Xandra murmured, and Nef snorted.
“Justified? Please. There are very, very few things that I would call that. History is often written by the victors, but when I look closer, sometimes I find the underpinnings of a society are nowhere near as pretty as they like to claim,” Nef replied, still in that conversational tone. “Perhaps if you’d had a deed going back five generations, and they’d attacked without even
sending an emissary, I might have called your actions justified, but you brought it on yourself to some extent. However, we’re getting rather far afield. You care about them, and you need to admit that.”
Xandra fell silent for a few moments, staring into the fire. A few sarcastic responses drifted through her mind, but they were drowned out by the memories. The death rattle of the woman with the brilliant red eyes, the screams of the angel-blooded man… they were so loud she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, resisting the urge to bite her lip. If she did she’d draw blood, and she hastily forced her fists open and placed her hands flat against the ground to keep from clenching them too tight.
“Everyone I’ve cared about has died. Horribly,” Xandra said at last, her voice feeling almost detached from the rest of her as grief whispered in the back of her mind. More screamed, she supposed. “Most of them at my hands.”
“You don’t know that. There could be others that you don’t remember. We have practically no information about your childhood, nor even much about your time working in the city,” Nef contradicted gently. “The only ones who’re old enough to remember you are the library dragons, and none of them had the chance to come into contact with you. I checked. Perhaps more information is in personal journals, but those are obscure enough I couldn’t find anything for certain.”
“Library dragons?”
Naomi’s voice came suddenly enough that it made Xandra snort, even if her voice was quiet. She opened her eyes, scrounging in the dirt until she found a rock and tossed it at the priestess, prompting a soft yelp as it hit the side of her bedroll.
“If you’re going to pretend to sleep so you can eavesdrop, could you at least be competent at it?” Xandra demanded, though she had to admit that the interruption had taken the edge off her grief. “I could tell both of you were awake to begin with, you know. The least you could do is give the illusion of privacy.”