Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2)

by Jennifer Melzer

  They’d taken her body to the pyre beyond the city walls and set the ashes of her spirit free upon the wind. Would someone see to those ashes when the last ember shuddered out, collect all that remained of the woman and bury her there in front of the temple? Though the time she’d known Yovenna was short, she would never forget the seer, or the visions she’d shared with her. She wanted to have a place to go when she returned from her journey, a place where she could honor the woman who sent her into the unknown with a purpose.

  “Will they bring Yovenna here?” she asked, voice hitching through the tightness of her throat like a hiccup. “Her ashes, I mean?”

  “They will.”

  She only nodded, her head moving in short, quick bobs Logren didn’t even notice. He swung the gate open and it screamed on rusted hinges, the sound echoing through the night like a keening spirit on the wind.

  “Good.”

  “Come on.”

  He edged her forward with a jerk of his head and she followed through the gate, along the pathway to the temple. Eyes scanned the plots, the statues, trying to count how many dead lay buried beneath the cold earth of Dunvarak, but it was dark and her mind was fuzzy even though the night air slapped some of the sense back into her mind. Once more she stood behind him while he fiddled with the lock to the temple, using the keys he still held in his hand. Benefits of being a city-guard, she guessed, ducking back as he grabbed the low-burning torch from the sconce outside and then reached for her hand to tug her inside.

  That dim torchlight ate away at the darkness, bite by bite spreading a dirty orange glow to reveal the room to her. Lorelei lifted her head to the ceiling, which the light had yet to reach, and saw beams of moonlight streaming through the stained glass moons positioned overhead. They were just like the moons in the temple in Drekne, though far more glorious to behold in the darkness.

  Kierda and Friegla’s light did not reach the windows, as they were hidden behind the clouds above, but Madra’s silver glow spread through them all, illuminating the interior of the temple as her eyes began to adjust to the myriad of soft colors and shapes forming in the darkness.

  In the center of the temple was a statue, not unlike the stag in the temple at Drekne, and circles of pews wound around it, enough of them to seat every person in Dunvarak. As she stood at the edge of those pews looking toward the middle of the temple, she felt so small and insignificant, just a single being with so little knowledge and understanding of how the world worked, what the gods expected from her.

  She’d been brought up paying homage to Foreln, the father of men, and honoring his divine wives: the Three Ladies who mothered all of humanity. They respected the All-Creator, but Lorelei always felt something more was required of her, she believed other gods demanded her attention. Llorveth haunted her dreams as a child, the moons chasing her through each night as if she were a villain, but she understood those dreams in ways she never had before.

  The moons of her nightmares weren’t trying to run her down, they were alerting her to the dormant wolf beneath her skin, and the older she got the more feverish those dreams became. If only she’d understood them better at the time, if someone told her the truth about who she was before her life fell apart, things might have been different.

  Only her mother knew, she guessed, and though it pained her to admit it, she understood why her mother held her at a distance, rather than embracing and loving her. She’d always thought the queen to be a meek and simple woman, a frightened little mouse of a creature who didn’t dare speak a word against her husband, and maybe that was exactly who Ygritte was, but Lorelei finally knew why. Aelfric killed the father of her child and made her watch. He destroyed her completely, and every time the woman looked upon her daughter’s face it broke her heart. Lorelei must have reminded Ygritte so much of Rognar she was afraid to love her. Afraid Aelfric would destroy the only thing she had left that reminded her of her brief freedom, of the love she knew with Rognar.

  It all made sense, but it didn’t make it any easier to endure. If Lorelei were ever taken, forced to marry Trystay, she would take her own life rather than suffer his rule over her, but then that was easy for someone who’d never known the kind of love Ygritte shared with Rognar, for someone who wasn’t doing whatever it took to ensure her child’s survival.

  “Why do they expect so much from us?” she muttered, taking a step past her brother. She cut through a space between the curved benches and made her way toward the statue of their god. Like the statue in Drekne, Llorveth’s horns were broken and she found herself reaching out to touch the furrowed brow beneath the nubs of stone where they should have been.

  Llorveth was her god, just as Foreln was. In a sense she guessed he always had been, but never more in her life had she felt that bond with the horned god than she did in that moment. Not even during their exiling from the Edgelands, when the essence of the god filled her with all the answers to the universe for the blink of an eye before leaving her body with little more than a trace of his wisdom, had she felt as strongly as she did in that moment about the bond she shared with the god.

  There really was a part of him inside her; she felt it just beneath the surface of her skin, warm and tingling like tiny needles against her bones without the pain. That acknowledgment warmed her stomach, settled the uneasy sourness churning there and making her feel for the briefest of moments that so long as she felt the god inside her, everything was going to be all right.

  Logren moved behind her, letting her go as he walked from sconce to sconce, lighting the torches as he went and filling the temple with a dull orange glow. As he worked he seemed to be thinking through his answer to her question.

  She was just withdrawing to sit down on the bench in front of the statue when he started toward her, speaking as he walked. “I think they expect from us exactly what we are capable of, no more, no less.”

  It wasn’t long before he was there, slipping into the seat beside her and lowering his folded hands between his slightly parted thighs. He stared up at the statue, head tilted in awe, his face softening as if simply sitting there had the power to comfort him and make all his troubles fade away. Lorelei longed for that kind of peace, wished it would fill her the way it seemed to fill him, and though she certainly felt lighter in the temple, there was fear inside her the mere presence of a statue could not quell.

  “How do they know what we can handle?” she muttered, shaking her head and returning her gaze to where his eyes rested. “And why is it so much harder for some of us, than it is for others?”

  “I don’t think it is like that at all,” he confessed. “I think it just seems that way when you’re on the outside looking in on someone else’s problems, Lorelei. What seems like a mountain to one is little more than a molehill to another. In fact, I know I could never do the task you’ve been given by the gods.”

  “Sure you could,” she shrugged. “You’re strong,” she went on, “more than capable.”

  “Maybe, but I’m also rash,” he pointed out, “impulsive. I think with my blade first, lashing out long before rational thought reaches my mind. I think that’s why I get so riled up by Vilnjar’s taunts about our father. Rognar was an impulsive man. I know that now. I remember instances that support it as truth, but I don’t always like to accept it. Unfortunately, I inherited that quality from him, and I very rarely think things through as well as I should.”

  “Sometimes quick thinking is the difference between life and death.”

  “Sometimes, yes,” he nodded, “but other times so much more is required, and it’s not that I’m incapable of thinking things through. Most of the time I just choose not to, but you…” As he paused, he shook his head, the braids jostling against his cheek and shoulder with a whisper. “You think about everything, even when you’re threatening rash actions… like putting swords in people who don’t do as you ask them to.”

  He laughed, remembering her threat on his life when they first met beneath Great Sontok.

&n
bsp; “I wouldn’t have really done it, you know.”

  Still laughing, the wheeze of his amusement became a choking cough and he doubled over on the bench in such a dramatic way she actually slapped him on the back. The whack only made him laugh harder, and before long the silliness caught on and she was laughing too. Shoulders together, they howled and rocked with amusement until the absurdity wore thin and both grew sober with the seriousness of events stretched out before them. Laughter became long, loud sighs as they pushed their backs into the bench behind them and both stretched their legs toward the statue in the center of the room.

  “All I’m saying,” he finally said, “is you will do what needs to be done. Maybe it won’t be easy, but you will see it done because the gods would not have given you such a task if you weren’t able to carry it out.”

  “But I haven’t been able to carry it out if everything Yovenna said is to be believed,” she insisted. “I’ve done this before, apparently many times, and each one of them I have failed.”

  She watched from the side as her brother’s face distorted with curiosity before turning to look at her. “What do you mean?”

  That prickling she felt beneath her skin stirred again, an odd numbness spread through her body until it rested at the base of her skull, making her neck feel tight with tension. Her brother did not know about the Tid Ormen, the time serpent thrown against the world in the All-Creator’s rage, nor that the tasks set for her by the gods went well beyond retrieving the Horns of Llorveth. She hadn’t told him, and neither had Brendolowyn. She’d asked him not to, but she just assumed told her brother everything.

  Logren nudged her with his elbow when she didn’t answer, stirring her from her thoughts and forcing her to look at him. “What do you mean?”

  She started to shake her head, fully intent on saying it was nothing, but the look in his eye stopped her. “I don’t know if…”

  “Don’t you dare,” he warned in a severe tone she imagined their father might once have used on him as a boy. “Don’t even try to back out of it now that you’ve said it.”

  “It’s just a story,” she shook her head. “Something Yovenna said about Heidr after the fall of Llorveth. He was so enraged by the atrocities committed by his sons and their children, he wove a serpent from time and then threw it at the world. The serpent, it’s called the Tid Ormen by the elves, chases its own tail, spinning against the cycles of time and causing our world to relive the same events again and again and again until one day we get them right and end the cycle.”

  “Go on,” he urged. His face was hard, every line and wrinkle in the skin visible as he turned to look at her.

  “Yovenna said it is my task to slay this serpent and shatter the cycle so we can move forward again.”

  If he wasn’t sober before, those words did the trick. All the lines in his face deepened, especially the crinkles around his eyes, which squinted with disbelief as he stared. “I thought you were to take back the Horns of Llorveth.”

  “Oh, I am,” she nodded. “But somewhere along the way I’m meant to do something that changes the time cycle and wakes the serpent. Once it’s woken, it is up to me to slay it and shatter its hold on our world so we can move forward again.”

  For a long time her brother said nothing. Eventually he leaned back again, stretched his shoulders wide and then let them hunch inward again with a sigh. “Who else knows about this?”

  “I told Finn,” she shook her head. “I went to Brendolowyn to ask if he knew of it. Yovenna knew, and maybe the seer I’m supposed to find in Port Felar, I don’t know.”

  “Hodon has no idea,” he muttered. “At least I don’t think he does. Why wouldn’t she tell him?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged, “because it’s not his task to worry about. Retrieving the horns, that affects everyone in the city, but this whole business with the serpent…”

  “Affects people all over the world!” Logren brought his hand up, stroked it through the hairs of his beard and mustache and tightened his lips. “This explains so much, and it changes everything, Lorelei...”

  “Not really. It is what it is, and nothing more. There’s still a lot I don’t understand.”

  “I could come with you,” he said. “Help Finn and Bren keep you safe so you can do what needs to be done.”

  “You can’t, Logren. Yovenna said…”

  “Yovenna said a change would wake the serpent. If I came with you, wouldn’t that be change enough?”

  She didn’t like how eager he was to wake the serpent spinning against their world. The tightness in her neck yielded to the jellying effect of chills. Her shoulder shook against it, neck tensing again. “Logren, you can’t come with me. Your place is here. The people of Dunvarak depend on you.”

  She remembered what Viina said to her in the bathhouse, about how little time Logren spent at home with his family, how agitated and restless he’d been waiting for Lorelei to come as the seer said she would. She thought about Roggi’s fretful tears just two days before, when he’d thought his father was leaving again. She’d felt so guilty then, because the boy was angry with her for going too, and terrified his father would leave with her. She couldn’t take him away from them, wouldn’t dare.

  “Viina needs you and Roggi too. And if Aelfric sends men through the Edgelands, those men will eventually make their way south to Dunvarak in search of me. Who will protect your city? Everything you’ve built here…”

  “This city protects itself. You heard me before. I am no mage. It is not my magic holding the world at bay, Lorelei.”

  “Maybe you don’t hold this city together with magic, but magic can be broken, Logren. I come from a place where the very essence of magic has been collared and enslaved…”

  “If you don’t want me to come then…”

  “It isn’t that I don’t want you to come,” she insisted. “I hate that when the sun comes up I must leave this place and put miles between us again. I’ve only just gotten here, only learned I have a brother and a nephew. I don’t want to be parted from you, and I would give anything to have your sword to protect me, but I cannot take you away from those who need you more than I. Your family, Logren…”

  “You are my family too,” he lamented.

  “And I will always be your family now.” Lorelei reached her arm around his broad shoulders and drew him close to her. “I know you are here now, and I won’t ever let anything come between us again, I promise.”

  Her brother tilted his temple into her forehead, a deflating sigh of defeat lowering his shoulders as he exhaled. “I just wish I could be there for you. I’m your big brother. It’s my job to protect you.”

  “You are here for me,” she pointed out. “And you’ll still be here when I return with the Horns of Llorveth. We’ll worry about the serpent then. Maybe I will learn more about it from the seer in Port Felar. Right now, I just want to get those horns and bring them back to your people.”

  “You may not know them well, but they are our people,” he corrected her. “Yours and mine.”

  “Our people,” she agreed with a slow grin and a nod.

  She didn’t know how long they sat that way, heads touching, the temple’s silence and one another’s company an eerie comfort against the overwhelming reality of the tasks ahead and the fact that in a matter of hours she would leave that place to do things she’d never imagined in her wildest dreams would be hers to do.

  She was glad he’d taken her to the temple, glad she’d sacrificed an entire night’s worth of sleep before heading out into the world because she’d spent that time with her brother and though she’d been skeptical about the man upon first meeting him, she loved him now just as much as she loved her little sister. She knew that so long as the two of them lived, she would never be without family or a home. She only hoped the gods, in their infinite expectations of her, remembered to reward her by keeping both her brother and her sister alive and safe through the trials that lay ahead.

  CHAPTER FI
VE

  The entire city of Dunvarak was awake with the dawn, gathered in the streets to see the Light of Madra and her party of two off on their journey. Finn was only asleep a few minutes, or so it seemed, when the sound of Roggi’s footsteps racing through the house brought him back to consciousness. He rolled and rumbled, almost forgetting he’d spent the night sleeping on the cramped pantry floor, wedged between mead barrels, sacks of grain and his brother. The aching of his lower back quickly reminded him and he stretched with a groan into the space his brother occupied during the night.

  Vilnjar was already awake, and in the emptiness of the pantry Finn felt both agitated and momentarily afraid he’d slept through sunrise and gotten left behind. He dressed, tugged into his boots and stood up. After raking fingers through the loose tangles of his black hair, he stepped toward the door and realized parts of him were trembling.

  Sleeplessness, he told himself, not fear, but on the inside he knew that was a lie.

  He was afraid of the journey that stretched for miles on his path. He was afraid of the things that journey would bring, including his possible death. He was only eighteen, had been eighteen just a couple of months, and before Lorelei came barreling into his life like a runaway doe on the chase, he’d been fairly certain he had a long and healthy, overwhelmingly boring life ahead of him.

  Suddenly the future was uncertain, a future he only wanted to spend with her, and there wasn’t a single boring day in sight.

  Everyone was at the table when he emerged from the pantry. Lorelei and her brother laughed as Roggi danced slowly in front of them with a spoon dangling precariously from the tip of his nose. Vilnjar sat with both hands curled around a steaming mug of kaffe from the carafe in the center of the table. Viina perched at the edge of the table, arms folded across her chest as she smiled and shook her head. Even the half-elf made his way to breakfast, though it was some consolation the dark circles under the mage’s eyes looked about as deep as the ones Finn felt beneath his own.