Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2)

by Jennifer Melzer

  “You might want to get that barrier raised, Elf,” he said, tossing down three rabbit carcasses in need of skinning. “The trolls are in fine form this night, and they’re headed this way.”

  Brendolowyn regarded her with gentleness, a slow smile edging at the corners of his mouth before he reached out and touched her again, ignoring Finn’s glare. “What you did was very brave, my lady, and you should not be ashamed of something that never was.”

  Lorelei nodded her head slowly as she felt his long fingers curl and tighten around her arm before he let go and rose to see to his task. Finn dropped into his place and pulled a knife from his belt to start skinning the offerings of food he’d brought back. For a long time she listened to the tight scrape of his knife and the chanting of the mage at their backs.

  She avoided Finn’s eyes even though she could feel them on her.

  Finally he nudged into her shoulder almost playfully and said, “If you ever tell him I said this, I’ll deny it, but the elf is right. You did nothing shameful. Men…” he started, pausing for a moment to choose the right words. She could tell it wasn’t something he did often. “Men have two brains, Princess, and most of the time we only think with the one below our belts. You were supposed to be married, and he should never have tried to pressure you into something you weren’t ready for, but you shouldn’t ever feel bad about almost giving into him. If you hadn’t…” He stopped for a moment, shook his head and then turned to look at her. “Well, you wouldn’t be here right now, sitting next to me in this wretched tundra freezing your backside off. And make no mistake,” he paused, his dark eyebrows lowering over his piercing blue eyes, “this is exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

  His eyes were calmer than they’d been in days, almost peaceful, as the wolf within was given the chance to run and hunt.

  “I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be here,” she said quietly, glancing up to survey the endless tundra beyond Bren’s rising barrier. Maybe with some reassurance from Llorveth, she would feel more compelled to her place. Or maybe not.

  “No?” he asked. “Come on, Princess,” he chuckled gruffly and bumped into her again. “Tell me honestly that this,” his bloodied hand outstretched in front of them, “is not the only place in the world to be.”

  She followed the line of his dripping hand and saw a host of angry shadows moving toward them. Raging trolls, three or four of them, and judging by the escalating snarls and grunts that brought them closer to their camp, they were none too happy with the intruders tucking themselves safely behind a magical barrier on their land. They arrived just seconds after Bren finished lifting the barrier, colliding stupidly with the invisible wall protecting them from the elements and all things that would harm them in the night.

  Lorelei couldn’t help the tickle of a laugh near the back of her throat. It may not have been the most perfect place, but even without Llorveth’s acknowledgment she knew Finn was right; she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

  Leaning into him from the side, she let the tension of the last few days, of the story she’d finally felt brave enough to tell flutter away on the wings of her own laughter. Brendolowyn drew away from the magical barrier and turned back over his shoulder to look at them. He shook his head, but he was smiling and soon all three of them were laughing at the absurdity of the conditions beyond that wall, of the quest that lay in waiting to be completed.

  For the first time in days, no one thought about the possibility of death that awaited them, or the fact that an even more impossible task lie beyond the retrieving of Llorveth’s horns.

  She wasn’t just where she belonged, but in proper company between two men who would see her to the end of whatever she had to do.

  For the first time since she’d left Trystay’s encampment and ran into the Edgelands she felt safe.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “So, the stepmother was a dragon?”

  Frigga paused and leaned her back against the post behind her to rest. She lifted a forearm across her soot-smudged brow to wipe away the sweat and then turned her head downward to look at Vilnjar again. Head tilted in thoughtful repose, a smile that spoke of disbelief worked at the left corner of her mouth, drawing the narrow pink softness of her lips upward.

  Her face glistened with perspiration, golden hair clinging to her cheeks and forehead where it was damp, and though she was covered from head to toe in smeared ash Vilnjar had never seen anyone fairer than Frigga in all his life.

  She paused and leaned her back against the post behind her to rest a moment. She lifted her forearm across her brow to brush away the sweat again and then turned her head downward to look at Vilnjar. A smudge of soot trailed behind her arm, making her look fierce despite her wide-eyed innocence and intrigue with his story.

  “A true dragon, like the Drakiiri of old?”

  “Aye,” Vilnjar nodded and continued to pump the bellows to keep the heat consistent, as she’d asked him to do. It was tedious work, and the muscles in his arms and chest had been screaming in protest for days, but it was a small price to pay for her company and her smiles. He distracted himself with the stories he told, sometimes forgetting he was actually working, though at night his body ached with the strain of labors unlike any he’d ever performed in his life.

  Almost a full week passed since his brother departed from Dunvarak, since he’d taken up his duties as Frigga’s storyteller, and during those six days she put him to work with the bellows while she shaped and hammered weapons and armor contracted by the captain of the Dunvarak guard himself. Sometimes her father, Broehn Black-Hammer, worked beside her, tossing the occasional disparaging glare toward Vilnjar, though other times it almost seemed as if the man was actually listening to the stories Frigga insisted he go on telling.

  On that particular morning Broehn was called to meet with Hodon and though Frigga didn’t seem to know the purpose of said meeting, Vilnjar could tell it was on her mind. More than once, she’d glanced through the milling bodies on the street to stare at Hodon’s hall across the way, so distracted from her work only the sound of her storyteller’s voice was enough to draw her back to the moment.

  “One of the last Drakiiri, or so we’re told,” he went on. “Did you know the Drakiiri were made in the opposite fashion of the U’lfer?”

  “Opposite?” She furrowed her soot-stained brow. “What do you mean, opposite?”

  “The Drakiiri walked among men disguised in their skins, but in their true form embodied the dragon, not the man. Chroniclers of that time say the magic it required for them to maintain human form was so exhausting, they needed to feed regularly upon the essence of their human lovers to hold onto their guise, or else be discovered for what they truly were.”

  “Is that how Jora discovered Yrsa was Drakiiri? Did she capture Dáinn and feed on his soul?” Confusion wrinkled her perfect brow, the ashen lines burrowing deep into her forehead. “Wait, wouldn’t that remake her, so she was a Dvergr instead of a human woman?”

  “Not quite,” he chuckled and shifted his position. He arched his back, stretching the muscles for momentary relief before returning his attention to the task at hand. “Though the Drakiiri could shape their bodies into whatever form they desired, Alvarii, Dvergr, human, they tended to maintain the same appearance once they’d chosen one. It was easier to reform the same disguise, I guess.”

  “Well, I still say Dáinn was a fool to leave Jora with his brothers the way he did. If he really loved her, he would want to stand and fight beside her. Otherwise why did he spend so much time training her as a warrior in the first place?”

  “Dáinn loved her so much he would confront the very thing that sought to kill Jora,” he countered, “and see the monster to its end before it ever came near her.”

  “Men are such stupid fools,” she decided. “They think us all weak because we are born with space between our legs for filling, and yet all they ever think about is filling that space.”

  In the last six days he should have
grown accustomed to her brashness, but sometimes the things she said both shocked and delighted him. There was nothing prudish or weak about the woman in front of him, no topic too bold for her to broach in animated fashion, and yet everything about her was feminine and soft. She was a woman who backed her opinions and knew exactly what she wanted from the world; he just wished sometimes he knew whether she wanted more from him than the stories he’d been entertaining her with.

  “Only Dáinn could never be with her in that way,” he corrected. “His mother’s punishment would not allow him to know physical love with a woman, and most especially not a daughter of Foreln.”

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t think about it constantly. After all,” she lowered the blade in her hands into the cooling bath and Vilnjar watched the steam rise between them like cloud, “if he really loved her, that would be the one thing he wanted most, wouldn’t it? The one thing he could never have from her. Her body.”

  There was unspoken teasing in those words, as if she knew he thought of her that way more often than he would like to admit.

  “There is more to love than the physical aspect of sharing bodies.” His tone was quiet, almost dismissive, and then he squinted up at her. “Are you going to listen to this story, or tell me how you think it should go?”

  “Listen, of course.”

  “On the road to Bragnoldun, Jora and Dáinn’s brothers came upon a small fishing village, but the people in that village would not make time for travelers because they did not trust them. They especially did not trust the strange men from the mountain, but there was one, an old woman all the children called witch, who lived near the edge of the village in a rundown shack all alone. She invited Jora and her Dvergr into her home and offered to break bread with them and ladle bowls with stew to fill their bellies if they promised to hear her story. The Dvergr did not trust the witch woman, and they tried to warn Jora, but her kind heart would not deny an old woman the company she longed for. Dáinn’s brothers followed their princess into the old woman’s house reluctantly.”

  “Was she a cruel witch?”

  “If you would listen to the story, perhaps you will find out when the time is right just what kind of witch she was,” he scolded, delighting in the lingering smile teasing at the corner of her mouth.

  He wasn’t given much time to admire her grin. Broehn Black-Hammer was making his way across the road from Hodon’s hall and Vilnjar nearly jumped out of his skin when the large, bear of a man bellowed, “I did not agree to this.” Glaring down at Viln, his blue eyes narrowed with contempt. “The two of you lazing about when there is work to be done. Do you have any idea how much there is to do?”

  “Oh Father, please.” She barely acknowledged the man’s ire, instead turning back into the bath and withdrawing the steel she’d been cooling to admire the snaking patterns that formed inside the metal. “I have done more work this day than you have done all week. And besides, you are interrupting a very interesting story with your senseless bellowing. Go on, Vilnjar. What did the old woman do to them? Did she poison the Dvergr? Was she Yrsa in disguise?”

  “Uh…”

  For a moment he could not find his voice, as Frigga’s father glowered at him from the edge of the porch, his large hands clenching and unclenching into fists at his sides.

  “Finish the story, Vilnjar. I would hear what became of Jora and the Dvergr in the witch’s hut.”

  He would never have thought Logren to be his savior, but the man shouted his name from the street as he jogged across it, distracting his attention from the bellows and the man who wanted to pound him into pulp. Logren darted through the foot traffic passing toward the market square, stopping out of breath just at the edge of the blacksmith’s awning. It wasn’t a long hike from one place to the other, but it seemed he’d made it in haste.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your…” Logren looked between the three of them while he caught his breath, then went on, “…work,” he finished. He’d come from the direction of the overseer’s hall as well, and Vilnjar couldn’t help but wonder if he was party to the same meeting Broehn came from. “Hodon needs to see you straight away, Viln.”

  An uneasy feeling moved through him as a thousand terrified thoughts plagued his mind. His brother? The letters he’d helped the other man write?

  He took a step toward Logren, lowered his voice and asked, “What is it? Is it Finn?”

  Gods, how quickly his mind always moved to the place in which his brother was in danger and his mother was scowling from beyond the grave because he’d allowed it to happen. He resigned himself to the fact that he couldn’t interfere with his brother’s life anymore, but that didn’t mean he was going to stop caring and certainly not simply let go of a lifetime of worrying overnight.

  Logren avoided eye contact, his nostrils flaring outward as he inhaled and looked away. Damn him, didn’t he know such looks were enough to wrench the guts of men? “It’s word from the Edgelands.”

  “So soon? Hodon said it would take days to reach them.” He didn’t guard his tongue, didn’t expect he had to, considering Broehn came from Hodon’s hall himself and probably knew far more about the goings on in Dunvarak than an outsider like Vilnjar would ever know. For a moment he glanced toward Frigga’s father, squinting eyes searching for what, he didn’t know, and then Frigga touched his arm and drew him back to the strange and comfortable place he’d come to know as her presence.

  “You should go, Vilnjar,” she said. “It is best not to keep Hodon waiting if Logren says it is a matter of great importance, but I expect to see you back here first thing tomorrow morning.” The order made her father issue a throaty growl. “I would know the rest of Jora Dragonslayer’s story.”

  Viln conceded with a nod, ignoring her father as best he could. “As you wish, Frigga.”

  Broehn held his hand out for the hand-held bellows Vilnjar had been working and he yielded it before backing away from the smithy to fall into step beside Logren. They were several steps away before the other man elbowed him in the ribs and offered an uneasy laugh.

  “Are you trying to provoke Broehn into killing you?”

  Logren was only slightly taller than Viln, but his legs were longer and they carried him at a pace difficult to match. Matching his stride as best he could, they wove in and out of people heading to and from the market. His companion was fidgety, which wasn’t altogether unusual for Logren under normal circumstances, but the underlying nervousness surrounding his demeanor only served to disturb Vilnjar all the more. He kept wringing his hands in front of him as he walked, rubbing the dry skin and pushing in against the muscle across the span of his palm as if it ached.

  “I would win his daughter’s hand.”

  “I don’t think it is his daughter’s hand you need worry about. She seems content enough in your company, but her father… He protectively grips that hand, Viln, with a controlling amount of vigor unlike any I’ve ever seen before. I don’t think it helps your cause much that Broehn’s already decided he doesn’t like you.”

  “In the end, it is not him who needs to like me.”

  “So said the last man who attempted to court the fair Frigga of the forge.” His eyebrow arched playfully, but the humor in his jest did not meet Logren’s eyes. “Either way, it seems you’re determined to see this through, and as I said, she does seem to like you, though for the life of me I can’t figure out why.” His tone was filled with teasing mockery, the sharp elbow of his bent arm nudging into Vilnjar again and stumbling his steps as he tried to avoid it.

  “I don’t know how well she likes me, to be honest. She does seem to like the stories I tell though, so I suppose that’s something.”

  “I think she likes you far more than you give her credit for, my friend.”

  Living under Logren’s roof brought the old friends far closer than Vilnjar expected. He supposed the absence of Logren’s mage friend was in part responsible for the amount of time the two of them spent together when they weren’t cons
umed with their daily tasks and duties, and long after Viina left them at the table for bed he found himself animatedly debating everything under the sun with Logren until the hour grew late and the mead barrels empty.

  Among debatable topics of discourse, Logren made it his personal business to chide and ridicule the man he now considered to be his oldest friend by pointing out the audacity it must require to march into a city and set his sights on the most eligible woman in it, but Vilnjar didn’t bother trying to explain to him how it was so much more than that, as far as he was concerned.

  He told no one, not even his own brother, he could feel the twining of Frigga’s soul with his own, the undercurrent of her heartbeat as it matched his rhythms whenever she was near him. He had a hard enough time trying to determine if she felt it at all; the last thing he needed was Logren poking and prodding into it before it made sense to Vilnjar himself.

  They were temporarily parted by a group of women carrying water jugs through the street, and by the time they came back together again he found the courage to change the subject to the matter at hand. “Something has happened?”

  “Indeed, it has,” he nodded. “I’m afraid the wind brings dark tidings, old friend.”

  “Dark… tidings? What do you mean? Not enough time has passed for a response to Hodon’s proposal.”

  “The letter never arrived.”

  When Logren turned to look at him, his amber eyes were narrowed almost guiltily, but what reason would he have for guilt? There was no time to ask, as they arrived at the entryway and proceeded into the receiving hall. Sourness churned in Vilnjar’s stomach then as he listened to the scuff of their boots across the wooden floors. Neither of them said a word, not even as they navigated the hallways to Hodon’s private chamber.

  The old warrior paced the floor, heavy boots tromping against the wood with every step, boards occasionally groaning under his weight. At the sound of the doors opening, he pivoted in to face them, his stern face stiff beneath his pale, yellow beard. Vilnjar didn’t like the look the man wore, it made him feel more nervous, especially when his blue eyes stared. What was that look? It was the same look he’d mistaken for guilt on Logren’s face, as it was not quite guilt. It was something deeper. Chagrin, perhaps. Helplessness?