He had admired Tassariel right from the start. Her body, lithe yet powerful, quick yet controlled, along with the skill derived from her calling, carried with it the promise that she would have all the physicality necessary to accompany him, to be both partner and apprentice on the most dangerous journey he had ever made. Seeing her in action had only deepened that appreciation. Yet now, whenever she was within his line of sight, he found his gaze lingering, admiring all the same things about her, but for far different reasons.
And he was running out of excuses to ignore it.
It had begun so simply. Twice he’d been all but blind by circumstance, and on both occasions she’d grasped his hand and led him to safety. Such a small thing. But he was nearing two thousand years of age, and though he’d traveled far more than most, experiencing the vast differences between cultures even from one district of the empire to the next, he had ever only been an observer. An outsider, looking in, desperately wishing to be a part of something, though knowing he never could. Other than when he was killing someone, he hadn’t truly been touched in centuries.
The very thought was almost enough to drown him in despair.
Mierothi hadn’t mingled with the very populace they’d dominated, and most could hardly stand the sight of each other. The stagnation running rampant under Rekaj’s rule had been less about civilization’s advance than it had been about his kind’s immortal souls. To live forever, to rule in absolution; these things meant nothing. Journey before destination, as the scholars liked to say. But without the latter, the former had no purpose. And without someone to walk at your side, gently holding your hand, even the most adventurous journey to the most promising destination was a lonely trek to make.
Memory being what it was, he hadn’t realized how much he wanted it until he started pondering the possibility. That it was Tassariel who had awakened this longing almost seemed a cruel joke. One last jab from the gods in their graves, or the kind of long-planned joke that only Vashodia could pull off, and whose punch line only she could understand. It was impossible on too many levels. Tassariel was a valynkar, for one, and far too young. And any notions of intimacy between them were only due to her need for comfort after her father’s cold reception. With the end of the world becoming more inevitable with every day that passed without them finding something that their allies could use, there was simply no time for . . . diversions.
Excuses, all of it. Why can’t you just admit that you’re afraid?
The thought seemed to come out of nowhere, stabbing him with its virulence, and cutting through all pretense to expose the cold, trembling heart that guided his logic. Thus laid bare, his reasons crashed to the ground, one by one, like timbers felled by an axe-wielding giant.
She is valynkar, but so what? We both came from human stock at one point, and I doubt either of us care what anyone else might think. She’s young, yes, but she has actually sought out experience and learned from it, managing to avoid the listless fate of so many who live through millennia. Though a heightened emotional state may have driven her into my arms, she is still thoroughly in control of herself. Most importantly: If the end of the world is truly coming, I’d rather not go through it alone.
Motion drew his gaze down the trail once more, revealing a tall figure in segments between the thin, white-barked trees that dominated the island.
Besides, my gaze isn’t the only one that lingers.
Tassariel marched fully into view, her lavender hair shimmering in the sun and hanging loose just low enough to brush her shoulders and neck. She’d taken to wearing it that way of late, instead of braided, making her seem—by human standards anyway—a decade older.
Her eyes found him. True to his estimation, they remained locked in place far longer than normal acknowledgment of his presence could account for. If he could only use one word to describe them, that word would be . . . intense.
As much as he wanted to fall into that gaze, to succumb to the desire he knew they both shared, some part of him still resisted. He may have rationalized away all the reasons to abstain, yet couldn’t help but think that all of this was somehow wrong, that their shared isolation and hardship had tricked them into feeling things that weren’t real.
And he’d lived long enough in his sister’s shadow to resent being deceived.
“Back so soon?” Draevenus said, gesturing to the basket overflowing with freshly washed clothes balanced on her right hip. “I thought you’d be gone all afternoon.”
She glanced down at the basket, finally breaking her awkward gaze.
Even though it was a discomfort he ached to explore, he was glad for the moment’s end.
“Some of the ladies helped me,” Tassariel said, smiling feebly.
“Has your father lifted their ban on speaking, then?” he asked, trying to keep it light. Her smiles had become rare, and he wanted to do all he could to preserve them.
She shrugged. Her smile vanished.
He sighed, cringing inwardly. So much for keeping it light, Draevenus. Might as well bring up her dead mother while you’re at it.
Tassariel trudged to their packs. Setting down the basket, she pulled each article one at a time, hands glowing with heat and light to banish the last of the moisture still clinging to them, before carefully folding and putting them away.
Though he tried to think of something to say as she worked, nothing came to mind that, were he to voice it aloud, wouldn’t be many times more awkward than the stare they’d shared a moment earlier. He’d never been the best with words—or women; the combination of the two froze him as surely as winter’s heart.
He was saved from any further potential embarrassment when she finished with the clothes and came to sit at his side, saying not a word as she leaned her head on his shoulder. Her presence warmed him in more ways than one.
“I don’t think he means to let us leave,” Tassariel said.
Draevenus nearly started at the sound of her voice, her mouth so close he could feel her breath on his cheek, smelling of the tart, sweet berries that grew nearby. “What do you mean, ‘let’ us? And who said anything about leaving?”
“We’re wasting our time. You know that as well as I. If there’s a weakness to be found about our enemy, we won’t stumble upon it here. My father has made it clear he does not wish to speak further, but neither does he want us to go.”
“Has he said why?”
“Despite my insistence that we can take care of ourselves, he views leaving this island as a death sentence, and will set his followers to standing in our way should we try. Pointless, but in a way, that’s almost . . . nice of him.”
“Nice?” Draevenus bit back a less than kind comment about the man. “I’d like to agree with you, but after coming all this way, I don’t want to leave until we’re sure there’s nothing valuable to learn.” He sighed, kicking a pebble. “And I don’t know where else we might go.”
Silence enveloped them as his last words seemed to hang in the air, the weight of them smothering all else. Tassariel fidgeted beside him. She, too, must have contemplated what their next move might be, and had likely come up just as empty as he had.
When he made plans, he always left room for error, for setbacks and improvisation, but rarely did he fathom outright failure. And unlike Vashodia, he didn’t have the foresight to layer countless contingencies upon each other, creating a weave so dense it ensured success through the sheer force of probability. Not knowing what they were going to do next made his stomach twist.
Even so, he was starting to enjoy the feel of her pressed against his side despite his reservation, when a sound reached his ears. She lifted her head, and they both turned to face behind them as the noise grew, a shriek tearing across the sky that they had come to know far, far too well.
“Ruvak,” he said.
They both jumped to their feet, but before they could so much as take a step, over a dozen figures raced into their camp. As surprising as that was, Draevenus was even more astonished whe
n an elderly woman spoke, barking out an order like a commander.
“To the hill! Go!”
The rest surrounded him and Tassariel, herding them like sheep. And like sheep, they obeyed without protest. As they raced along towards the hill at the center of the encampment, he shared a look with his companion, seeing in her eyes a reflection of his own excitement, and knew that his heart wasn’t the only one whose hastened rhythm had nothing to do with the exertion of their flight.
We might finally—finally!—see how they do it. How they repel the ruvak using only light.
He spared only the briefest thought towards offering to lend them their aid. They’d help if things went sour, but this was simply too good an opportunity to pass up, and could very well validate their entire journey.
As they approached the hill, mobs of figures streamed in from all sides, and he was at last able to obtain a clear estimate of just how many people resided here: well over a thousand, mostly women and children. Despite their rush, and the nature of approaching threat, he could see little panic among them. Some of the young ones were even smiling, singing rhymes as they skipped along, or jostling each other as they laughed and raced to see who would be first to the hill.
Passages, carefully concealed in the brush, were opening everywhere he could see. The island’s denizens flowed through them to some kind of shelter, but a growing collection of figures remained outside, eyes fixed on the hilltop.
And every last one of them was energizing.
Tassariel gasped.
Draevenus examined her face for a moment, then followed her stare. There, stepping to the very summit of the hill, a space ringed by trees and flattened like some kind of stage, came her father.
The man’s eyes surveyed his riveted followers, stopping cold when they swept through Draevenus and Tassariel. Even from this distance, Draevenus could see guilt overcome the man’s visage, an expression that seemed horrifically natural. He had heard only little of the man’s story, but it was enough to drive away any pity he might have felt.
Now approaching one of the shelter entrances, their herders urged them onwards, gesturing towards the damp, shadowed space. Both he and his companion stopped abruptly.
“I’ve no time to argue,” the old woman said. “Get in.”
“No,” Tassariel said. “We need to see. To witness.”
“Your father gave strict orders, girl. He’d be wroth if anything were to happen to you.”
“We crossed half a continent to get here,” Draevenus said. “Nothing the ruvak do can surprise us.”
The woman glanced towards the man on the hilltop, as if for guidance, but he had begun to energize, gaze lifted to the sky in a sad sort of ecstasy, and it was apparent that he was in no state of mind for issuing commands.
Lips twisting, the woman flicked a hand at them dismissively. “Do nothing stupid,” she said before ducking through the portal and vanishing into the shadow of the shelter.
Draevenus flashed a victorious smile at Tassariel, who returned the expression in kind. Together, they turned to face the approaching skyships.
Just as a trio of large, airborne masses came skittering into sight through the treetops, the casters around them pulsed as one. There was no doubt about who led them, however, through whom all that power flowed.
He glanced over his shoulder to see Tassariel’s father raise a glowing arm. A moment later, raw light energy shot forth from him in three blinding beams.
Blinking, Draevenus wrenched his gaze forward to track their progress. Inerrantly, the beams struck the three ruvaki vessels, each, he now saw, the size of a flagship. Their hulls glowed white, attuning in an instant.
He held his breath, waiting for revelation.
For almost a full mark, the skyships made no move, neither to advance nor retreat nor attack. They simply . . . hovered. Shapeless statues in the sky. The light emanating from the hilltop remained equally stagnant, a formless flow of light lacking any clear definition or purpose. It wasn’t even particularly hot.
“What the abyss is going on?” he asked.
Tassariel said nothing, merely shaking her head as she pointed towards the skyships. The three vessels turned with all the haste of slugs, dipped their noses like chastised children, and flew away.
Frustration and disbelief warred within him as he watched them vanish over the horizon.
Revelation, it seemed, would not come today.
Mevon trudged through the dark streets of the colony, careful not to disturb the burden cradled in his arms. Each step squished from the blood soaking his boots, too much of it his own. He couldn’t even smell it anymore. In the past five days, he’d received more new scars than he had in the previous five hundred, and slept fewer tolls than he usually did in one. Not that he was unique in that regard; no one had gotten much rest since the ruvak had renewed their attacks.
Since the day of his wedding.
Mevon risked a glance at the figure he held. Sharp snores stuttered from beneath a face smeared with dirt, while a blond braid dangled over his forearm, ash-coated strands of hair sticking out to all sides like innumerable, wriggling snakes. At least that’s what his mind perceived. With fatigue pressing down as heavy as a mountain, he was surprised his hallucinations weren’t more frequent or bizarre . . . and that the woman held close against his chest wasn’t one of them.
My wife. No, not a burden at all.
As hard as he’d been fighting, Jasside had put him—and everyone else—to shame. Every time the ruvak had attacked, she’d been there. The defensive line was over a thousand leagues long, and they simply didn’t have enough troops to mount an effective defense around it all; the bulk of the casters and elite troops spent their time flying between one engagement and the next. She had always been the first to arrive, at times the sole difference between victory and defeat, throwing back their assaults almost single-handedly.
Only tonight had the enemy relented, giving humanity their first true respite along the whole of the perimeter. Upon hearing this, Jasside had collapsed instantly.
As glad as he was that she’d finally get a chance to rest, Mevon couldn’t help but worry. The ruvak had proven too smart for his liking, and he knew they were now refining their tactics from the lessons they’d learned during the initial phase of their siege. That they could only field ground troops against prepared fortifications, casters, armed skyships, and sorcerous war engines didn’t seem to matter when they had a seemingly endless supply of fresh soldiers, ones who displayed more ferocity and discipline than had those he’d faced before.
And no one could discount the possibility of additional saboteurs in the colony.
All in all, the strategic situation was a mess. Mevon was more than glad to take little part in it, leaving the planning and execution to those skilled in such things, like his father and King Chase. Losing himself in battle had given him more than enough satisfaction.
He glanced down at Jasside once more.
Well, almost enough.
At last Mevon spotted their tent among a cluster of others tucked in among the permanent mierothi homes. Technically it was now their shared quarters, since she had given up her house on the domicile to a needy family, but they had yet to sleep in it at the same time. As much as he wished their first night together as husband and wife to involve more than merely sleeping, he knew it was what they both needed most.
Nearing the entrance, he turned sideways, shielding Jasside with his shoulder as they pushed through the flaps, which were three layers thick and tied down stiffly to keep out the cold. Inside, darkness greeted him. As he wasn’t yet familiar enough with the tent to navigate it blind, he measured his steps even more carefully than before. It seemed half a toll before he felt his shins bump against the bed.
Sighing in relief that he’d found it without tripping, Mevon began kneeling to set Jasside gently upon the mattress.
Halfway down, his knee buckled.
With his hands full, he had no way to catch him
self and tumbled forward into the bed. The frame groaned at the influx of sudden weight, and his head pressed against Jasside’s chest, pinning her.
Mevon managed to right himself just as her eyes shot open.
Abyss take me . . .
He could just make out the whites of her eyes, darting about frantically in what could only be panic. He didn’t blame her. To awaken in a strange place, in the dark, as a massive figure loomed above you, and without access to your power? He couldn’t say exactly what he’d feel in that situation, but in her case, he doubted it would be pleasant.
“Mevon?” she asked in a rasp, her breath rapid and laboured.
“Yes, Jasside. It’s me.”
“Where are we?”
“In our tent. You fell unconscious after . . . well, from exhaustion.”
“The ruvak?”
“Quiet. For now.”
A long sigh escaped her lips, which calmed her breathing. “That’s . . . a relief. But there’s still so much to do. We’d better—”
“You are not going anywhere. You’ll kill yourself if you don’t get some rest.” Mevon began pulling away, slipping his arms out from underneath her. “I’m sorry for waking you.”
“Five days since our wedding, and I’ve only just now got you to myself.” She grabbed at his collar, yanking his face down towards hers with surprising force. “I have more important things on my mind than sleeping.”
This close to her, Mevon couldn’t help but smell all the sweat and grime and ash that caked her body, but underneath that was another scent, one wholly her. Wholly . . . feminine.
She wrapped both hands around his neck, pulling him in the rest of the way, and pressed her lips against his with unbridled insistence.
Mevon did not resist, forgetting as well all thoughts of sleep.
Jasside laid against Mevon’s chest as it rose and fell with rhythmic regularity, gently tracing the scars across his abdomen with the tip of one finger. His snoring rumbled on without interruption.
The Light That Binds Page 28