Dolor and Shadow

by Angela Chrysler

  Had Gudrun not drunk the tincture, she too would be dead.

  Aaric stopped at the heap that was Daggon’s body crumpled against the stone wall that made up the arched entrance to the Great Hall. Despite his proximity to the blast, which had thrown him into the arch, it very well saved him from the bulk of the blast, and from death.

  Aaric placed a hand to his burnt brow. His Seidr was there, but faint, and Aaric at once set to work, muttering the charms he learned a lifetime ago.

  Just enough to keep him alive for Gudrun and…

  Aaric deepened his Seidr and muttered beneath his breath.

  …all I need now is a witness.

  CHAPTER 31

  The road followed the river, twisting down the mountainside from Livsvann. Clouds filled the sky with magnificent silhouettes, while below the ocean stretched into the horizon like black glass. Countless shadows reflected the clouds that seemed to rise like billowing wraiths from the sea.

  Eager to put as much distance as possible between them and Lorlenalin before sunrise, Rune had steered Astrid from the road and into the forest. The steady pound of the horse’s hooves upturned the leaf litter and invaded the silence.

  His hands shook. His head reeled as if the traitor had infused a drug into him. But there was so much more than that, like the drug was always there, now awakened. His heart thundered with the surge until his chest ached, and he couldn’t steady his hands from shaking. Despite the changes, he felt stronger, like he was ready to charge into battle with sword and bow and knew he could win.

  Rune gazed at Kallan lying limp in his arms.

  What of the Seidkona?

  In the heat of battle when all other lines had failed, the desire to kill her and ensure his brother’s victory had been clear. But out here, like this…

  Her hair had fallen to the side, leaving the lines of her slender neck exposed.

  Bergen wouldn’t hesitate to break your pretty, little neck.

  He imagined his hands wrapped around her throat. Like this, he could snap her neck with ease.

  A coward’s killing.

  The cut on her head was gone, leaving behind a series of questions without answers. He remembered his mother and sister. They had been Swann Maidens and shared a link to Eire’s Land that he had seen from no other. Not even he and Bergen were born with that gift.

  Too much of their father in them, his mother had said.

  Distorted shadows splashed across the trees. Branches reached every which way like menacing limbs in the dark. The clouds shifted now and again to permit various shades of gray to spill into the wood, obscuring the night.

  For half the night, he had considered killing her, but there was still too much he couldn’t answer on his own. And then there was Borg. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about him, let alone whatever it was he had done to Rune. The first time they had met, Borg was adamant to have Kallan killed, but in the stables, Borg seemed more concerned with keeping her alive.

  Don’t tell her about this. She won’t listen. She won’t believe you.

  Rune studied Kallan’s face.

  Serene and content when you’re not trying to kill me. How much do you know, princess?

  The clouds cleared and allowed bits of moonlight to spill into the forest. The first morning light peeked through the trees, dispensing the last of night’s shadows.

  But if I don’t kill you now, how am I to defend myself when you wake?

  Rune looked to the bit of sky seen through the sly. The searches would commence soon. The closer to Gunir he was by that time, the better. Bergen would be trailing him by morning. If he knew his brother, he knew the exact road on which to meet up with him. He would wait for him there.

  By the gods, stop, why can’t I stop shaking? A traitor with the powers of a Seidr user and a blast strong enough to throw a Seidkona to the air. Why release me, princess?

  Rune leaned down onto Kallan as the lowest of branches and thorns dragged along his bare back instead of swiping Kallan’s face while Astrid stomped through a brood of grouse, upsetting their roost. Guttural gobbles and harsh, woody pops filled the forest as the birds scattered. Their wings and calls drummed with the rustle of trees before the forest quieted down again.

  As much distance by morning. Nothing else matters, Rune mused. Just so long as I survive the Seidkona.

  CHAPTER 32

  Gudrun looked over the desolation that spanned the courtyard and pulled her shawl tighter, as if able to block the horror before her. Along the battlement, the dead lay. Blood painted Gudrun’s arms from the seemingly endless wounded that filled the Great Hall. There was no one left in the courtyard, no work left to be done, but she couldn’t bring herself to stay away.

  A cold wind swept in from the sea and caught on Lorlenalin’s turrets to funnel down to the courtyard. Gudrun looked to the sky. The clouds had begun to clear. The light of the moon’s crescent spilled over the white, blood-stained stone.

  “Lady Gudrun?” The worry in Eilif’s voice pulled Gudrun’s attention from the sky.

  His voice felt unnaturally alive among so much death. Like smooth rain, he glided across the courtyard. His tall, skinny frame left him looking ragged and worn in the dark.

  Gudrun looked the scribe over and assessed his condition. The concoction she had given him earlier did well to ease his nerves and left him with a visible, empty hurt that reflected her own heartache.

  “Have you found her yet?” he asked. His voice wavered as if it would break.

  Unable to speak, Gudrun lowered her swollen eyes to the ground. She couldn’t see that look on another face one more time.

  “No. That was the last of them,” she said. “Any sign of Daggon?”

  Eilif shook his head. “I haven’t seen him.”

  Turning her back, Gudrun crossed the vast courtyard, once more scanning the rows of dead faces for Kallan’s. The wind whipped her long, silver hair across her face. Her bloodstained chemise trailed to the ground, catching on debris that pulled at her skirts as she walked. Gudrun hugged herself tighter against the chill.

  “Lady Gudrun?”

  The old Seidkona turned to the scribe. In another lifetime he had so eagerly embraced his studies alongside Kallan as they committed countless ancient runes to memory. Together they played, mapped the city, and collected the children from the streets. She watched the last of Eilif’s youth fade before her eyes as he shouldered the same grief that haunted them all.

  “Lady Kallan…” Eilif lost the words, seemingly unable to muster the strength to speak them.

  The shuffling of feet carried through the courtyard and drew Gudrun’s attention to the corridor.

  “Oh,” she gasped as Aaric emerged from the passage with Daggon, unconscious, supported over his shoulder. Burnt flesh and blood marred his face in gouges of black and red. The wild copper mop of hair matted nearest the places singed to the bloody scalp, and his grizzled beard had melted completely away in places. The burns disfigured the length of his right side to his hip and extended across his torso.

  To her knees Gudrun fell, pulling Aaric to the ground with her. Eilif bent over Gudrun’s shoulder as she scrambled with her Seidr pouch and withdrew a vial. With shaking hands, she poured a droplet of golden liquid into Daggon’s mouth while muttering beneath her breath.

  Golden sprays of Seidr light flowed from her hand as she inspected the injury, and immediately set to work to heal him.

  “Will he live?” Aaric asked, panting to catch his breath beside her.

  She shook her head, her brow furrowed, and submitted another drop onto the burns. Sharply, she gasped and halted the spell. Her hands shook and the blood left her face as her thoughts turned to wilder things buried in the lands beyond the sea.

  “I know this Seidr,” she breathed and looked at Aaric, who held his gaze hardened and cold.

  “Where did you find him, Aaric?” Gudrun said.

  “The stables,” Aaric said, staring back with a look that reveal
ed too little for Gudrun to read.

  “Is he dead?” Eilif asked.

  “No,” Gudrun said, and returned her attention to Daggon. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Will he live?” Aaric asked.

  Gudrun tried to pull back the cloth that had fused with the skin near his waist. After a brief examination, she released the fabric and inspected the burns that extended across his chest. The exposed skin on his right side had partly melted away.

  She shook her head, forcing down a sob caught in her throat.

  “It’s too soon.”

  “Was Kallan there? Did you see her?” Eilif asked.

  Aaric shook his head.

  “The last I saw of her was the third floor corridor. We were ambushed,” he said. “I sent her on to the stables.”

  Gudrun listened to the regret that clung to his voice while administering another drop of liquid. Too much remained unclear, unanswered. Ever since she had fallen asleep, her mind had been clouded. Recent events flowed together and there were places where complete thoughts were missing. They had waited for an attack from the Dark One that never came.

  There was…

  Gudrun began the long task of siphoning her Seidr through Daggon while she tried to sort through the garbled confusion. She had tried to remember how she had come to be laying on the ground surrounded by dead and injured. Kallan was missing. Yet, not a single sword swung, not a single arrow released…that she could remember anyway.

  For several minutes they stayed there, unmoving, all peering over Daggon as Gudrun worked. The scribe wrung his hands together, stopping now and again to chew on his thumbnail while he waited.

  Gudrun administered another drop on his burns, and the first flinch of relief came when Daggon took in a long gasp that he released with a howl.

  “Hold him down,” Gudrun ordered then proceeded with the spell. Together, Eilif and Aaric pinned Daggon’s arms, holding him against the stone as he bellowed and grunted from the pain.

  The Seidkona continued, knitting the fibers, repairing the flesh until Daggon ceased his fight and eased up. His breath slowed as he found its regular pace.

  “Ka—” he spoke, panting on the ground through the pain.

  “Where is she, Daggon?” Aaric asked, shouting the words loud enough for Daggon to hear through the unconsciousness.

  Gudrun and Eilif looked to Aaric.

  “Kallan, Daggon,” Aaric cried. “Did you see her?”

  “He…” Daggon’s voice cracked and scraped against his dry throat.

  Gudrun administered another droplet into his mouth. Daggon gulped, licking the sweet nectar of Idunn’s apples as the Seidkona dropped a third onto his cracked lips.

  Before their eyes, they watched the raw, burned splits close themselves.

  “Took her,” Daggon said between breaths. “He…”

  Gudrun furrowed her brow, uncertain about the blanket daze in Daggon’s eyes.

  “No wonder the Dark One pulled out so suddenly,” Aaric said.

  “He took…” Daggon tried again, choked by the visible wave of guilt that overwhelmed him. “I…I…”

  “Sh. Sh. Sh,” Gudrun hushed, returning to work on his face. “Sleep now,” she bade as she repaired his skin with her Seidr.

  “Eilif,” Gudrun said, still mending the wounds splayed over his body. “We’ll be ready to move him soon. Go fetch help.”

  Without hesitation, Eilif fled down the passage to the Great Hall.

  “Will he die?” Aaric asked, seeming to know she had held back with the scribe nearby.

  Gudrun shook her head, her attention glazed with a newfound determination.

  “It will take me the night and most of the day…” She looked up from Daggon. “…but I think I got to him in time.”

  Aaric nodded as Eilif returned with two men and a large fur. They moved per Gudrun’s orders, shifting Daggon to the fur and carrying him back to the Great Hall.

  “I’ll need Uthbert’s irons and the tailor’s needles,” Gudrun said. “Odinn knows I can do most of this on my own, but I’ll need help. And I’ll need water,” she called to Eilif, who had almost vanished into the corridor. “Cut back his clothes so I can better see what I’m working with.” She spoke these last few words to herself as Eilif slipped from sight.

  “Gudrun,” Aaric said, grabbing her arm as she rolled up her sleeves with shaking hands.

  “I’ll need my supply of apples brought down from my chambers,” she said. “I’ll need to use what I can to save him.”

  “Gudrun. If the Dark One has taken her, there will be no hope for her.”

  Gudrun pursed her lips as her reddened eyes filled with tears.

  “We can’t afford the men,” Aaric said, with an empathetic tone. “With Daggon near death and Kallan gone…”

  Gudrun rubbed her eyes with the back of her bloody hand.

  “I don’t have the men to go after her,” he said.

  The old woman pulled her hand from her eyes. A streak of blood smeared her face.

  “What are you saying?” Gudrun asked.

  “Gudrun,” Aaric said. His voice cut through the silence like a cold, blunt knife. A breeze slashed against Gudrun’s legs, but she didn’t seem to notice. “We can’t help her. Kallan is on her own.”

  The gold in Gudrun’s eyes brightened with rage.

  “Kallan has Kira’s strength, no matter how dormant it may be. Do not underestimate her ability to survive this.”

  “The chances are slim,” Aaric said, “and I can not spare the aid.”

  “Why do you do this?” she breathed.

  “As long as the queen is missing,” Aaric said, “my station requires that I put the needs of Lorlenalin first. And if that means turning my back on a queen so that her people may live, then so be it.”

  “You never had a place here.” Gudrun spoke unusually low. “Never among these people. I told you that when you came here.”

  Aaric’s chest rose and fell as Gudrun tested his temper. The etchings on his chest caught the streaks of moonlight.

  “I know what you did to her,” Gudrun said. “Do not think I don’t know why you’re really here.”

  Aaric matched the hatred in Gudrun’s face.

  “Those were different days, Gudrun. I did what I had to do then. I am doing what I have to do now. Do not mistake my duty to Lorlenalin as a lack of concern for that girl. I pledged my allegiance to Eyolf when I left—”

  A raven cawed in the distance and Aaric clenched his jaw, refusing to say more.

  “‘That girl’,” Gudrun said, “is Kira’s daughter. Don’t think I have forgotten.”

  Aaric took in a long, deep breath at Kira’s name. “A fact I am reminded of each time I see her eyes.”

  “Her blood flows from mine,” Gudrun whispered. “That Seidr line stems from mine.”

  “I am aware.”

  “So are they.” Gudrun’s raised whisper caught the wind, and, nervously, she and Aaric looked to the sky as if waiting for the clouds to swoop down and smite them. Gudrun exhaled, still shifting a worried glance to the sea. The night had grown calm.

  “I’ve held your secret this long, Gudrun,” Aaric said. “I don’t want them to find her any more than you do.”

  “I have done too much to let you abandon Kallan to the wolves,” Gudrun said. “Nor will I stand by while you abandon our queen.”

  The wind rustled, funneling down to the courtyard from above.

  “I will heal the men of Kallan’s army,” Gudrun said, turning her back to the sea. “I will heal Daggon and repair their wounds, and then let’s see you tell Daggon he isn’t going after Kira’s daughter.”

  Pulling her shawl around her shoulders, Gudrun dragged her forlorn body to the passage, leaving Aaric staring at the single raven perched on Lorlenalin’s balustrade.

  CHAPTER 33

  Kallan followed the recurring thwit through the endless blue and sickly silver corridor she wandered in dreaming. For hours, she had looked for the corrid
or’s end. Twice she had doubled back in search of the beginning, but there was only ever the endless hall without windows or doors, filled with the echoing thwit.

  The echo continued, sustaining its tempo, while a young girl sang:

  “Through the wind the spriggans play,

  O’er the sea where they stay.”

  Kallan ignored the child’s song and ran toward the thwit at the end of the hall. A brief rush of wind grazed her legs, urging her on ahead toward the wind, the thwit, and the end.

  “The Faerie queen, she sits there still,

  Tending the earth beneath her hill.”

  Kallan followed the song around another corner and began the next corridor. Shadows billowed in the distance, rolling in on themselves, concealing the end or another corridor. And still the child sang:

  “Where the mystical Fae King’s throng,

  fills the earth with ancient song.”

  The rhythm of the thwit was wrong, too consistent for it to be random, and repeated itself too frequently to be an arrow. She tried to stir, to open her eyes, but sleep was too deep, her dreams too real. She could not wake.

  “Where the Fae King’s halls are gold,

  Where they sing their songs of old.”

  Foreign smells invaded her senses and she tried to find the familiar scent of sweet rose and lavender that always filled her room and mingled with sea air. Her hand brushed her gown. Kallan moved her fingers against the soft furs on her bed, and the silks brought from the east, but touched cold dew instead. Another breeze grazed her leg. The song was growing louder.

  “Through the wind the spriggans play.

  O’er the sea where they stay.”

  Through the shadows, the Dark One’s black eyes gleamed. Kallan opened her mouth to cry out, to scream, but Seidr flame came instead, engulfing the corridor and drowning out the song that turned to screams. The soft mist of Livsvann’s falls fell into the fire that burned the water and Kallan glimpsed Daggon’s face in the dark. The screaming continued and Kallan called for the children, but shadows stretched through an icy black. There, the Seidr seemed to end and the screaming stopped.