Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2)

by Jennifer Melzer

  Did everything in the world come back to mating somehow? And if so, why hadn’t Pahjah at least warned her of that much before shoving her out into the world to marry a murdering fiend who wanted to bed her before he killed her?

  She’d thought when she and Finn first talked about mating near the stream outside Breken that it was a base and savage term for the romantic joining of two hearts and bodies, and the night she’d learned she was his mate, the notion of it only served to confirm those feelings. The more she found herself exposed to men and their primitive desires, the more she actually started to believe it really was a savage thing.

  Even after everything, Finn still wanted to lay with her. He couldn’t have known what she almost suffered at the hands of those orcs, but the fact that she’d nearly been killed should have been enough to turn him soft. She felt his desire rise against her when he drew her close in the water, saw the hunger in his eyes, but all she could think about, even when she’d kissed him back, was how close she’d come to giving up her maidenhood to a pack of filthy, barbaric monsters with no thought whatsoever about her as a person.

  What was wrong with men?

  Since leaving home, she came across less than a handful of men who hadn’t wanted to get inside her—her own brother for obvious reasons, Vilnjar, who couldn’t stand her company at the best of times, and then there was Brendolowyn. Even Bren, she wasn’t so sure about sometimes.

  The mage cared about her very deeply, but she couldn’t understand why. He may not have said as much out loud, but just as she could see Finn’s feelings for her every time she looked into his eyes, she saw similar emotion in Bren just before he looked away when their eyes met. He flirted with her openly when they first met, but as time wore on, he distanced himself from her in ways that only made her contemplate him more.

  Traveling together, she hoped to get to know him better, and he opened up a little, telling stories of his childhood in Til Harethi on the southern coast of Thulasaliir, but there was so much about him she still didn’t know. Things she wanted to know, parts of him she wanted to understand because she liked him.

  He was a familiar mystery to a young woman who’d grown up among an entire household of collared, Alvarii slaves. An enigma the hidden parts of her wanted to unravel, even though she knew she wasn’t supposed to because of her soul’s attachment to Finn.

  Gazing in his direction, he hid within the hood of his robes and stared forward in deep thought. She felt Finn watching her as she watched Bren, sensed the tension rising in him and though she felt instinctively guilty, a part of her didn’t care. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She never asked for a part of her soul to be connected to his. She hadn’t asked for anything she’d been given, and yet she was taking it all in stride, as if she didn’t really have a choice—just as she was taking Finn.

  She had choices. For the first time in her life, she was in control.

  Which wasn’t to say she didn’t care about Finn. Turning her head over to look at him, a part of her grew soft and warm every time she was near him. She wasn’t sure if it was because a small slip of her soul was tethered to his, or if she really did care for him. She only knew sometimes, when she needed a distraction, all she had to look was look at Finn.

  She often played a game inside her mind where she weighed out whether or not she would actually choose a man like Finn if she wasn’t already so connected to him.

  He was handsome, there was no denying that, and despite his rough exterior he was a sweet man, completely devoted to her in ways she couldn’t imagine anyone else would ever be. Sometimes, when she actually let him hold her, she felt as if their bodies were made to fit together.

  On the other hand, he was rude and obnoxious most of the time, saying whatever came into his head without a thought for anyone or anything around him, and worst of all, he was so full of himself. Parading around like the big bad wolf, he really thought he could handle everything life threw at him—even her.

  He was so infuriating it made her blood boil, and then he’d look into her eyes, that adorable, teasing smile playing at his lips and making her want to kiss him instead of slap him, even though she was pretty sure he deserved the latter far more.

  She turned her stare forward for a long time, watching the landscape alter and change as they grew nearer and nearer to the port. The ships began to look like ships, their vast sails stretching in the wind like cats arching their backs.

  “I don’t recommend we venture much further than this.” Brendolowyn stopped, his own gaze lingering on the sea. “At least not together. We are like to rouse suspicion if we get too near the gates. If King Aelfric is searching for you, his men will be on alert, more than likely interrogating every young woman with hair like yours that dares to pass through the gates.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Set up camp out of sight over the ridge and send word to the seer Yovenna told you to seek,” Bren said.

  “Send word?” Finn quirked a disbelieving eyebrow and shook his head. “How do you propose we do that? With magic?”

  Brendolowyn didn’t answer, only lifted his face toward the sky and closed his eyes, much to Finn’s annoyance.

  “Really? Telepathy?”

  “Shh,” Lorelei hissed, turning a scolding look in his direction.

  Abashed, he looked away, mumbling something into his shoulder she couldn’t make out.

  Moments later Hrafn swooped in from behind them, flapping his wings to slow the speed of his free-fall and landing in a flurry of feathers on Bren’s outstretched arm. “Not telepathy. I will send Hrafn.” He opened his eyes and glanced back at them both. “He will carry message to the sentries of Nua Duaan, inform them the Light of Madra has come to meet with him and I bring word from Dunvarak.”

  “If he’s a seer, won’t he already know we’re here?” Finn postured.

  “Perhaps he does know and is simply waiting for an invitation to come and meet with us,” Bren said stiffly.

  Finn harrumphed, stretching an arm across his chest and shaking his head. Lorelei turned her horse around and began sauntering away from the scene, but he was right behind her with an unspoken glare of caution. It was barely midday, but they set up camp atop the ridge as Bren suggested, hidden in a circle of thick pines obscuring their view of the port.

  The salt of the sea mingled with the overwhelming scent of damp earth and pine. She’d never smelled anything quite like it in her life, and as she sat down to root through her pack for something to nibble on, she decided she wanted to remember that moment, the particular smell for the rest of her days. She didn’t know why, but as she fed a handful of nuts and dried berries between her lips, she closed her eyes and breathed it all in.

  She did not read the message Brendolowyn wrote, but watched him roll the tiny piece of parchment and secure it just above the bird’s foot. He murmured quiet instruction to his feathered companion before lifting him toward the sky and setting him free. Hrafn croaked, taking off with a brilliant flap of blue-black wings until he was little more than a soaring triangle just below the clouds.

  “How will Hrafn know where to go?”

  “Hrafn has been here before,” Bren said, stepping back and finally lowering his head from the sky. “He knows the way.”

  Yovenna hadn’t even told her the elven seer’s name. Only said he was hidden there within the city, or rather, below the city, and she should seek him out. Were there other things the Voice had spoken to Bren, and not her? The thought disturbed her, making her draw the folds of her cloak tighter around her body as if the wool would actually make her feel warmer.

  For the remainder of the day the three companions sat restlessly within their camp outside the city. Sometimes when the wind shifted, she could smell cooking fires on the wind, fresh-bread baking and the sizzling fat of fish frying in pans. It mingled with other city smells, the pungent stench of refuse and waste that clung to such large gatherings of people. Despite the stifling, yet familiar aroma of humanity, she
wished they had fish of their own to fry, but she knew nothing about catching her own fish so she daydreamed about the flaky, delightful tang of flounder while feeding salted strips of dried beef between her lips and chewing them until her teeth hurt.

  Finn did not leave the camp to hunt, and had not done so since the orc attack. He did not start a fire until the night was almost too dark to see, and when Hrafn did not return as the first of the moons began to ascend into the heavens, Brendolowyn raised a reluctant barrier to hide and protect them and the light of their fire from prying eyes atop the city’s walls.

  The task exhausted him far more than it usually did, and he retired to the interior of his tent to rest, leaving Finn and Lorelei alone.

  They sat on opposite sides of the fire, both of them staring into the flame, but from time to time she felt his eyes on her, acknowledged the rising surge of his blood as it pumped through his heart. An hour passed before he finally found the courage to speak, not looking up at her when he asked, “So you’re still pretty mad at me, huh?”

  “Mad at you?” she repeated, her upper lip curling in confusion. He always thought she was mad at him, though she couldn’t imagine why. “I was never mad at you, Finn. Though you made it pretty clear you were angry with me when I refused to let you just throw me down and…”

  He cut her off, his hushed voice rising over the crackling logs in their fire. “If you really think that was why I was mad at you, you’re far more naïve than I thought, Princess.” His declaration felt like a slap across the face. “As much as I want you, I know there are more important things, just as I know when the time is right you will know where your heart lies. I was mad at you because you were careless,” he went on. “But I’ve been even madder at myself for not watching after you as carefully as I should.”

  “You can’t watch me every second of the day, Finn,” she stiffened, reaching down beside her for a long stick she began poking into the depth of the fire. “No matter how much you want to play guardian, you have to sleep sometimes,” she added.

  “We’ll just see about that.”

  “And who knows what else awaits us out there. What if we were separated?” The thought alone was enough to horrify him; she saw terror in the widening of his eyes and the taut line that became his mouth. “Who will look after me then?”

  “Not the mage,” he scoffed quietly, ignoring the glare she narrowed across the fire at him. “And there’s no way we’re getting separated. I’ll die before I let that happen.”

  There was that lingering threat again, the imposing doom of someone’s death. Yovenna hadn’t said one of them was going to die, she’d said only two of them would return from Sorrow’s Peak, but Lorelei could add. Mathematics was one of the few instructions Master Davan hadn’t horribly contorted to protect her and her sister from a history their father didn’t want them to learn. One of them wasn’t coming back from the journey; they all assumed the worst, but never spoke about it.

  “I need to learn to take care of myself, just in case something happens.”

  “There isn’t time for you to learn to take care of yourself, Princess. In case you hadn’t already noticed, we are already in the thick of this.”

  “Of course I noticed,” she shot back. “I notice it every time even the slightest hint of danger rears its head, and I feel helpless, Finn.”

  “I should be teaching you,” he finally said. “You should be practicing whenever we have free time. Like right now.”

  “Right now?”

  She turned her gaze around the small circle of pines hiding them temporarily from the world. The set-up of their tents around the fire left only a small space that, when standing, he would barely fit beneath without the branches catching in his hair with one wrong move. Finn watched her take it all in, then pushed himself up off the ground.

  “Right now. Let’s go.”

  He grabbed only his shield, ducking into that small space beside the tents and lowering onto his knees. Holding the shield up in front of him, the golden glow of the fire made him look fierce, ruggedly attractive, and considering the amount of time she’d spent that day thinking about how much she’d like to slap the devilishly handsome smirk from his face, something inside her itched with the desire to show him she was worth something.

  “Come on, Princess.” His cocky, playful smile goaded her from where she sat. “Let’s see if you still remember the things I taught you.”

  But then doubt edged into her consciousness, as she imagined making a fool of herself again. He would laugh at her, make her feel helpless and dependent upon his shield in front of her whenever they faced trouble. Had it not been for her brother’s intervention at the base of Great Sontok, she’d probably be a frozen, buried corpse beneath the snow.

  “I probably don’t remember any of the things you taught me.”

  “It hasn’t been that long.” He rapped his knuckles across the front of his shield in a taunt. “You’d be surprised how much you remember when you absolutely have no choice. That’s why it’s good to practice. To keep your reflexes honed.”

  It felt stupid; she felt stupid reaching for the hilt of the sword still tucked into the belt she’d laid on the ground beside her, but Finn was right. The cold leather of the grip felt comfortable, empowering as she wrapped her fingers around it and started to rise, dragging the blade along the ground and listening to it ring.

  “What should I do?”

  “Come at me and don’t hold back.”

  That was easier said than done. At first her attempts were just shy of pathetic, her weak arm barely inspiring hits heavy enough to jar him behind his shield. He roused her with insults meant not to frighten, but inspire her. He called her Princess, knowing it infuriated her. Asked if she wanted to be taken by the first man or beast powerful enough to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off, kicking and screaming. At first she thought maybe he didn’t know how hurtful the things he was saying were to her, but then she realized he knew exactly what he was doing.

  Asking if she liked being weak, if it felt good when she was helplessly dragged between those orcs. Maybe next time she might just lay down and open her legs, let them have her. Every word he said made her so angry, and the fact that they were coming from his mouth only served to intensify her rage.

  How could someone who said he cared about her say such hurtful things?

  “The next time you see your handsome prince, maybe you’ll just hand him a knife and say please when you ask him to cut your throat.”

  She brought her arm down so hard the impact reverberated painfully through her wrist and all the way up to her elbow. It throbbed agonizingly and she almost dropped her sword, but her fingers were curled so tight around the hilt it was like a part of her. She wanted to hit him again, but the force of the blow knocked him off balance. He tried to maintain his footing, but he fell behind his own shield laughing.

  “Now that’s more like it!”

  “You’re a jerk, Finn.”

  She didn’t think it was funny; she wanted to hit him again for a whole bevy of reasons. She wanted to knock the arrogance right out of him, smash the smarmy grin from his face, but most of all she wanted to show him she was not helpless. The next time she came face to face with Trystay of Hofft she wouldn’t be begging him to kill her, but running her blade through his belly until they were face to face and he could feel the fire of her hate against his skin every time she exhaled. He would be the one who begged, whimpering for her to spare him, to remember the way he’d loved her and she would laugh at him just before she twisted and pulled his insides out as she withdrew.

  Finn’s laughter ebbed as he peered over the edge of his shield at her and propped half-sitting on his elbow just out of reach. The light of amusement faded from his eyes as he lowered it to show his face. She was still raging, her ragged breath dragging through her throat, chest and shoulders heaving, her eyes blurred with unshed tears of anger. Her heart was thunder in her own ears, but underneath that thunder she
felt the steady, soothing beat of the muscle in his chest calming her rhythm.

  “Maybe I am a jerk, but imagine how much harder that would be to hear from someone who didn’t care at all? Someone who actually meant it?”

  She didn’t have to imagine. She already knew.

  Finn started to roll into a seated position again, laying his shield over his lap and staring up at her with pride.

  “The beast wakes in you,” he added, folding his hands atop his shield. His calm demeanor took the edge off her rage, making it easier for her to breathe again. She both loved and hated the power he held over her emotions, resented and admired him for making her feel the way she did when she was with him. “Fierce, strong, angry… You may not be able to embrace her now, but listen when she stirs, follow her instincts, and no one will ever hurt you again.”

  “Good.” She swallowed hard, her throat so tight she felt like she might choke on her own emotions. “Because I’m tired of being hurt.”

  Finn only tilted his head to stare at her, the long locks of his black hair falling down the front of his shield, his eyes glistening in the light of the fire.

  “You can use the pain of the past to hone your arm, Lady, but eventually you will have to let it go or it will rule you.” The sound of Bren’s voice startled them both.

  Neither of them heard him emerge from his tent and his shadow never crossed the fire’s light. Instead he lingered near the edge of the flames, little more than a shade himself. He’d been watching them spar, arms crossed, head thoughtfully tilted. “In time, even the bitterest of wounds begin to fade and we forget what we fight for.”