To Wield the Wind (Enclave World Book 1)

by Remi Black

  “What? Those knights, all those riders, they’re human? They can’t live that long.”

  “The riders are human. Not the ladies or the lords. Certainly not the queen or king. But the knights, the dames, they were once human. Lady Bone gave them a bargain, and they won, for they ride with her rather than watch their bones bleach on the shores of Neothera. She extends their lives even as she consumes their lifesparks, and they give her utter devotion.”

  “You’re confusing me. The Lady and some Lord, they are Crygy. The knights and the other riders were human but are now Crygy. And they’ll all live for centuries.”

  “For longer than the Fae. The ladies and the lords, they’re immortal. At least, I’ve never heard of them dying or being killed. They’re not gods, but treat them better than gods.” He lay on his pallet and flicked the blanket over him. “Get some sleep. Dawn will come faster than you want.”

  “Don’t we need to stand watch?”

  “No creature will venture near when the Lady rides. We’re safe.”

  “Even from that wyre?”

  “Even from him.”

  She sat on her pallet. He’d put her between him and the fire, solicitude she appreciated when she still shivered from the knight’s touch. “And a gobber? Are we safe from them? That one crossed my wards last night.”

  “They all fear Lady Bone, Orielle.”

  She lay back. The ground was hard, but she was weary. And hungry. Her stomach was no more than an empty cavern, dark, darker than Crygy eyes.

  The sword knight had once been human. No longer. She could see the human in him, better than in the knight who held the wight’s leash. Yet he began to look like his Lady. The other riders she hadn’t seen very well. She wished she had, to judge how they differed from the two consort knights. What would be the life of a Crygy dame or knight, once human, riding ever with Lady Bone, never seeing the sunlight?

  The knight had given her a name to use with Lady Bone. Aiwaz Solsken.

  “Grim,” she whispered, afraid to ask but desperate to know, “what will she do to the wight? She said it would pay a tithe for its lie.”

  He didn’t answer. She strained to listen. His breaths were regular and deep, the ones she had heard during her drowsy watch.

  Remembering the wight’s whimper, Orielle shivered. No creature will venture near when the Lady rides.

  Once more she saw the Lady’s black eyes and sharp features, sharper teeth and bone-white skin. The sword knight’s scarred forearm.

  She turned onto her side, dragged her cloak’s hood over her tousled hair, burrowed under her blanket, and willed sleep to come.

  ~ 6 ~

  In dawn’s cold light, Grim’s sharply angled chin reminded her too much of the Crygy.

  Prepared for the day, Orielle considered the Fae within the Enclave. She tried to give their faces the elongated angles and stilly sharpness that the Lady had. She left them their nature’s colors of hair and eyes and skin, but she tried to lengthen their bones.

  And she was left with the eerie revelation that the Enclave allied with creatures who neither looked nor thought as humans did.

  No wonder the ArchClans had opposed the renewed alliance, over-ridden by the other clan leaders and grudgingly accepted only when the sorcerers of Frost Clime started the war.

  She cupped water into her hands and drank before she splashed away her uneasy sleep. After last night’s encounter, she hadn’t expected to sleep, but fatigue cast her into deep slumber. Grim had had a hard time waking her.

  The water ran too quickly to offer a pooled mirror. Her element was Air; she could still the water and see if the sword knight had marked her forehead. Wouldn’t Grim had remarked on that?

  Hood back, hair swept back so he could see any mark, Orielle returned to their camp. She approached him with a tentative smile, but he scarcely looked her way, handing over a tough piece of jerk before tucking the pouch beneath his leather jacket. Then he headed off for his private business. She hurried through the rest of her ablutions.

  When he returned and asked if she were ready, she stood with alacrity. “Will we reach the horses soon?”

  “Good morrow to you, too, Orielle.”

  “Good morrow,” she hastily returned. “The horses?”

  “If we’re lucky.”

  “Luck.” She didn’t express her philosophy on random chance. She’d learned too many things she didn’t know. She’d learned too many things she’d rather not know. Falling into step beside him, she pondered the Crygy. How had they entered and left the camp without triggering her wards? Would Grim know that answer?

  He led her along the mountain’s flank, up from their camp but not following their path down. She thought they were heading deeper into the Wilding, yet they returned to the stream that fed the waterfall. She balked there, digging her bootheels into the thick mast of moldy moss and tree litter. “Where are we heading?”

  “I’m taking you back.”

  “Back?” That sounded like a stupefied child. “Back where?”

  “The Lowlands.” He steadied her progress over the rocks.

  Orielle batted his hand away and crossed her arms. Her glare was ruined by an insect bugging her eyes. She waved it away. “I’m heading to Iscleft Haven. When I leave there, I’m going to Iscleft itself.”

  “Iscleft,” he repeated flatly. “Where Frost Clime gains ground daily.”

  “Why do you say Iscleft that way? As if—I don’t know. I could say you made it ‘roll with doom’, only that’s too fanciful.”

  “Doom.” He watched a wind flutter the leaves. A few released their grip and swirled down, letting the wind guide them. “I just came from Iscleft, Orielle.”

  “You were a soldier there?”

  He grinned and looked pointedly at his sword, flicked fingers on the mail hood draped heavily on his chest.

  “I didn’t think the Rhoghieri were soldiers,” she clarified.

  His expression darkened. He turned abruptly and began walking beside the stream. She hastened to stay abreast.

  “I’m a mercenary.”

  “Oh.” The syllable carried a wealth of condemnation that she hoped he didn’t hear. His shoulders’ twitch revealed that he had. She hastened to cover her slip. “You were a mercenary at Iscleft. Why did you leave?”

  He paused so long she wondered if he would answer. He helped her over a fallen tree, the barren branches dipping into the sparkling water, the huge root ball exposed up the slope. He steadied her cautious steps over a flat boulder slick as glass with splashed water, then guided her through the rocks that had tumbled down with the giant slab.

  Grim pulled her up a steeper slope, but he paused where the ground leveled. “The war’s changing,” he finally said, just when she thought he was too offended to talk. “Iscleft needs help.”

  “That’s what my cousin Camisse said. She commands Chanerro Pass, you know. And your mission is mine. I want to convince the Haven to help us defeat Frost Clime.”

  His lowered brow didn’t welcome her persuasions added to his. “You said you were Galfrons clan, not Letheina.”

  “Yes. Why? Oh, because Camisse is my cousin? It’s convoluted,” she explained, her hand tugging at his, for she talked with her hands. “I can draw it for you, but basically, my grandfather is brother to the ArchClans Letheina. He married Lady Cardray then chose to ally with Galfrons rather than his sister.”

  “Who is your grandfather?”

  “Malboys.”

  Without a flicker of his eyelashes—and his were long and dark, a thick fan wasted on a man—he resumed walking.

  Orielle skipped to catch up. “You know of my grandfather? Do you know my brother Saithe? He’s a great wizard. He’s serving at Iscleft.”

  Grim stopped. She ran into his arm. Peering around, she saw nothing ahead. Then he turned, and she saw his bleak expression. “Saithe is dead. He was killed in the last battle that I fought in.”

  Everything stilled, more frozen than Crygy lives. T
he stream roared in her ears. “How?”

  “Wyre.” She barely heard him. “They came over the wall onto us. His power was useless against the shifters. The wyre slashed his throat open.”

  She jerked free. She whirled away. She wanted to hide, to wail her grief—but the steep slope above her, the widening stream below, and thick-trunked trees and bushes behind barred escape. The vivid colors of autumn rioted around them, mixing with summer’s lingering green and patches of a crystalline blue sky, but she saw only grey, a fog of grief.

  “Orielle.” Grim rested a heavy hand on her shoulder, pressing her into the ground. “My sorrow at your loss. He was a good man, a strong ally against Frost Clime.”

  “But not against wyre,” she choked.

  He hauled her around. Sooty eyes searched her frozen face. She refused to give him any tears.

  “Shall we go on?”

  His eyes narrowed, then he gave one nod, turned around, and began walking.

  His pace slowed. She didn’t complain. He didn’t talk. He didn’t look around, not even when she stumbled because tears blurred her eyes. She caught herself with a quick grab, and a slender tree offered itself to her hand. Then she couldn’t release it. She stared at her fingers wrapped around the silvery bark. She willed them to open. They remained closed tight, fingers not meeting thumb. The tree branches shook, freeing more leaves that drifted down, landing on her cloak, sliding off to join the ages-old forest litter.

  Grim’s big hand covered hers, pried off her grip and offered support. She didn’t lift her gaze from the fallen leaves, thinking of how many leaves fell every autumn with no one to know, no one to grieve.

  He touched her face, offering warmth where the sword knight had given ice. She flinched and lifted her eyes to his, smoky grey again. He smeared the wet on her cheeks. His finger scratched her skin, but she only blinked.

  His hand dropped. He started to turn.

  “You said—.” She cleared her salt-clogged throat. “You said his power was useless against the wyre, but yesterday you said I could use power to fight them.”

  “You can use the elements, not your magic. Your brother knew that. Everyone does. But the attack was unexpected. He fell back to old lessons rather than the new ones that the Fae taught us. Wizardry is useless against wyre, no matter how strong it is. Remember that, Orielle.”

  “The Fae teach lessons about power?”

  “Elemental power. They taught me a great deal about Air, even though I can wield it with ease.”

  “Are Rhoghieri still allied to the Fae?”

  “The old alliance holds, though none of us cross into Faeron, not anymore.” He looked away, a sign that he hid more information, and that gave her mind additional questions to ponder as she tried to wall off her grief at her older brother’s death.

  They hiked on. Eventually, the stream widened to a creek. At a bend a second stream flowed in. Orielle stood on a moss-covered rock and watched the water cascade over earth-stacked boulders. The widening creek spilled on. The water poured around the great rocks and rushed toward another bend, spreading over stones and pebbles smoothed by the incessant rush. Broken timbers piled at the creek’s bend, carried by floodwaters swelled by the spring melt and left to bleach over the dry summer and autumn.

  After the bend, the water spread out, losing depth to width as it became a river. Fallen trees stripped of their bark and bleached silvery grey had dipped their upper branches into the water. The understory was sparse. The lower trunks were charred by a fire that had burned the forest litter but not the trees. The flames had destroyed tender shoots and bushes, leaving the hardier trunks. Orielle didn’t see the doe until she flicked her ears. Silvery brown, she stepped cautiously, picking her way through the trunks, stopping to mouth off a green leaf that other grazing deer had missed.. The doe’s head lifted. Her long ears flicked toward Grim, crouched beside the water refilling his flask. Then the doe bounded over a fallen tree and vanished.

  They moved lower, closer to the river which opened to the sky, still crystal blue. Without covering clouds, the temperature would drop overnight. She hoped for another campfire although by the chilly dawn she’d scooted so close to the fire that she’d woken beside the coals.

  Another deer drank from the river. She froze as they emerged onto the river’s wide shoreline. Then she bounded away, splashing through the water to the other bank, covered with laurel.

  Grim walked ahead. The beach’s sandy grit retained his footsteps until he angled away from the water. Casting westward from its midday height, the sun warmed. Orielle flicked back her hood and lifted her face to the sun. A hawk spiraled, large loops that gradually worked down-river while they walked up-river. She glanced back at the mountain they had crossed then compared the coming mountain, higher, steeper. Remembering the burn in her leg muscles, she didn’t relish the climb.

  She broke the hours-long silence between them. “How far is the Haven?”

  “Four, five days if we don’t reach the horses.”

  “So far?”

  “Rhoghieri were shunned by Lowlanders when we left the alliance. Too much magic. We have the mountains between us and the Lowlands.”

  “Wizards are outlawed in the lands south of Gramina Aurus. That’s one reason the Enclave keeps a strong presence in Mont Nouris. You could have maintained the alliance. The Lowlanders wouldn’t have troubled you then.”

  He lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “We keep a border with Faeron. The Wilding’s trouble enough, especially for the last six years or so.”

  “When Frost Clime rose.”

  “I wouldn’t connect the Wildings with Frost Clime. The creatures don’t like control; the sorcerers want to control. Like your own life in the Enclave, come when I call and do what I tell you when I tell you to do it.”

  “The Enclave’s not like that,” she protested even as she flinched at how many rules bounded her life.

  “False freedom.”

  “The tenets guide us. Sorcerers have no tenets. They don’t care that blood-magic corrupts. They seek lesser wielders to enslave, to use their power. They try to control minds. Wizards shun those spells.” Her defense drew the line she had almost forgotten. “Those aren’t rules. Those are ethical choices. It’s not the spells I had trouble with. It’s the tenets. Serve. Sacrifice.” She listed the two tenets that she and her friends are argued against while they drank coffee under an awning at their favorite café. The smell of jasmine, the droning of bees lazily gathering pollen: the memory blinded like the sun overhead.

  “Did you want to rule?” he asked, reducing those many debates to naught.

  She hunched a shoulder and remembered the last three tenets, the important ones that her friends had never debated. Freedom. Balance. Energy. With heat, she named them for him. “These are necessary.”

  “Freedom’s not being free, Orielle. It’s chaos—only some early wizard didn’t want to teach little wizards about chaos. Wise, too, seeing what power can destroy. Binding chaos keeps it under control.”

  His words reminded her of the symbol that the sword knight had shown her, the loops of the four elements encircling chaos. Binding it, to use Grim’s words. Sorcery celebrated the random effects and didn’t attempt to control it. Rombrey, her oldest tutor, the one who stayed impatient with her, he claimed that unchanneled chaos was weaker than chaos bounded by the other sigils. She quoted him to Grim.

  “That would be the way of it,” he agreed then jumped onto a boulder that had fallen ages ago from the steep slope on the river’s far side. Trees had grown thick behind it. The boulders that had tumbled with it lay scattered across the riverbed, creating stepping stones for giants. He reached down to help her climb.

  Even as their hands joined, she felt a prickling sense. “Grim,” she whispered.

  His head cocked—then he stilled. He looked away, across the river. “Up.” He hauled, and she landed beside him on the boulder.

  “You feel it?”

  He didn’t answer. He
stared at the thick laurel covering the opposing mountain. She could see nothing, but she didn’t need hawk-eyes. Now that they were still, now that they weren’t clomping over the pebbled shore, she realized how silent it was. The birdsong had died. Even the hawk had abandoned its slow spirals.

  “What is it?”

  “Wyre.”

  She pressed her palm into his back. “The same one?”

  He shifted, and the mail under his jack shifted with him. She didn’t know how he stood the weight. “Likely. He’s brought a friend.”

  ~ 7 ~

  A friend. “Oh, good. One for each of us.”

  At her false brightness, the crease deepened between Grim’s dark brows. Maybe it had never left. “You do remember that your magic is useless against them?”

  “I was never a good student.”

  “Orielle—.”

  Her hand patted his back. “I do know. I won’t forget Saithe. Magic rolls off the wyre. Cut them down with swords or depend upon the Fae. Or use the elements, that’s what you told me.”

  “Use your strongest elements.”

  That limited her to Air. Water was good, better with the river close. The others were pretty much useless.

  “We need fighting room. Have you fought any battles with elements before?”

  “No, I’m a city lass.” Her flippancy this time quirked his mouth. “I’m not a novice. I’ve taken contracts outside the Enclave. I’ve fought a sorcerer and defeated him. We did,” she admitted.

  “This will be first time by yourself, then.” He jumped down then reached up to catch her. He swung her easily down. “This way.”

  He headed toward the wide shore between river and trees. In spring flood, the waters would cover the sandy grit. At the top of the shore, with the dry of autumn before the winter rains and snows began, the ground had lost its softness. The moss had browned and crumbled underfoot.

  Grim had pegged her green. Her mother had objected when Orielle volunteered to go to Iscleft Haven in her sister’s stead. She had personally felt only pride when the ArchClans accepted her petition. Her mother’s protest embarrassed her. Not by herself, Maman had remonstrated. Send another wizard with her. At the least, send a guard.