“I’ll take that under advisement, as I sit in the company of my traveling companions, as well as I’ll consider reporting your insolence to a guest in your master’s home when next I see him.” Brendolowyn hadn’t thought it possible for the man’s eyes to grow any larger, but they did. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to wash the dust of a long road from my skin. I do hope there is enough water for a proper bath.”
There was plenty water for a bath, and then some. The Alvarii were an exceptionally clean race of people, something he occasionally lamented living among his half-blooded, U’lfer kin. Not that the U’lfer were dirty, but there was not enough magic in all of Dunvarak to allow for bathing more often than once a week in the communal bathhouse. They washed regularly from the basin, kept their clothes, hair and teeth clean, but he couldn’t deny missing the luxury of regular baths in a private tub.
Alvarii engineering was a beautiful thing, and while he drew a steaming bath, he stripped out of his robes until he stood naked in front of a hoary mirror, forced to take a look at himself.
Leaning forward, he swiped a hand across the mist, clarifying his reflection. It was not often he took time to truly look at himself, but each time he did it grew more and more difficult to recognize the person staring back at him. The loosened tangle of braids he wore around his shoulders shuffled across his back as he shifted his head to move them. Faded tattoos inked across his chest and shoulders, down the length of each arm, covered his back and torso.
Magical runes for protection, Alvarii symbols of inspiration and memory meant to keep him from losing hope during the darkest time of his life. Etched upon his skin by those he’d once called brothers, he need only glance at them to remember the process of its reception. The smell of ink, the repetitive tap-tap-tap of hammer and nail, the throbbing of its permanence and the fire of its healing. None of them were without meaning, without memory, but the scar on his left forearm, a spiral-centered sun with twelve pointed rays, he wished daily he could tear from his skin.
The brand of Molaak’lekai—the orc he’d once called master.
His right hand deliberately pressed into the smooth, puckered flesh, fingertips dancing across the raised, golden skin. He tightened his fist, straining cord and muscle until he could feel the electrical energy draining from the air around him and making the hair on his body rise. Closing his eyes as chills rolled through him, he shrugged them off with a stiff tilt and crack of his neck, then dropped his arm slack at his side again. The energy dispersed, but the power of it made him feel self-righteous.
He’d spent years in the lek’orum of Molaak’lekai, and in that time he’d seen the arrival of dozens upon dozens of powerful, pure-blooded Alvarii, but the weakness of their delicate spirit saw each and every one of them freed from their binds by the same means: death.
In the end, he’d survived them all, a Bristalv…
As if such a term could ever be considered insult now.
Stepping back from the mirror, the condensation slowly clouded over his reflection again. He climbed into the tub, stretched his legs as far as they would go and rested his head along the lip behind him. It was impossible for him to relax. It just wasn’t something he knew how to do. His mind was constantly working, always churning over some small detail, and for once it wasn’t preoccupied with Lorelei, at least not in the way it usually seemed to be.
Everything about their reception in Nua Duaan made him uneasy. They waited almost two full days outside the walls of Port Felar before being granted entry into the city, only to arrive and be immediately shoved aside and told they had to wait. Gwendoliir was nothing shy of condescending with him, and his always working mind continually shifted back to reexamine the story Lorelei told about the night she ran from the man she was contracted to marry.
Trystay of Hofft planned to pin her murder on the Alvarii Underground, an act he seemed to hope would inspire King Aelfric to finally attack the uncollared Alvarii who made his life a living hell.
But what if the Alvarii were partial to his plot? What if they wanted Aelfric to attack? Surely, Jonolov wasn’t stupid… No, The Silver-Tongue hated humans with a passion, but…
Sluicing up from the water as if from a sudden awakening, it splashed out the sides of the tub and dripped onto the floor below. He stood up, carefully stepped out of the tub and toweled himself off before grabbing for his robes. They were dirty, but he was in a hurry. He allowed the fabric to fall down his torso and waist as he walked across the room. Without even stopping to slip into his boots he yanked open the door and padded down the hallway in his bare feet.
He didn’t know which of the doors at the end of the hall belonged to Lorelei, so he knocked on the right door before spinning around to pay the same attention to the door on the left. It was only a matter of seconds before the door on the left rushed inward, the hulking, U’lfer warrior appearing in the frame. The loose, damp tendrils of his black hair hung around his shoulders, suggesting he’d just come from a bath and for the briefest moment Brendolowyn felt a surge of jealousy move through him like a storm. Was she in there with him? Had they bathed together?
“Where is Lorelei?”
Before Finn had a chance to respond, the door at Brendolowyn’s back opened. “I’m right here.”
Her hair was damp as well, the dressing gown she’d slipped into hanging loosely over her shoulders and exposing far more of her freckled skin than he was accustomed to seeing.
For the briefest moment he couldn’t find his voice, and then she prompted him, asking, “What is it, Bren? Is everything all right?”
“I’m not sure,” he said quietly. “But I think the three of us need to talk.”
“Come in, then,” she stepped backward. Glancing down at his exposed toes, she lifted her gaze back to his face and noted, “It must be urgent if you ran all the way down here without any shoes on.”
“I’m not sure how urgent it is, but something strange is going on, and I think we should at least address it before it’s too late.”
Finn pushed in behind him, large hand clamping on his shoulder and steering him into Lorelei’s room. He closed the door behind them both and Brendolowyn scanned the interior of her quarters with a critical, paranoid eye. “What’s this all about, mage?”
“Finn, please stop calling him that,” Lorelei protested. “His name is Brendolowyn.”
“At the moment I don’t care much what the U’lfer calls me. We have far more important matters to attend to, I fear.”
“Then get to them,” Finn prompted.
Ignoring him entirely, he ducked down to look into her eyes as he asked, “Lorelei, how clearly do you remember the night you ran from the wedding caravan?”
“I’ve already told you everything I remember from that night in far more detail than I care to repeat.”
“Yes,” he nodded, “you have, but you said something that hasn’t quite settled with me since you told me about it. Now that we are here, I must know whether I’m being overly cautious, or if we have something we truly need to worry about. Tell me what you overheard him telling his Ninvarii sorceress.”
Heaving a disgruntled sigh, Finn pushed past him and came to stand beside Lorelei. He lowered his arm across her shoulders in an almost protective maneuver and then softly said, “You don’t have to do this.”
“If Bren says it’s important…”
“I don’t need to hear the other details, but when he was walking about his plans, about the Underground, what were his precise words?”
Her face blanched slightly beneath the golden freckles spread across the bridge of her nose and speckling both cheeks. Swallowing hard, the sound of her nervous apprehension seemed to echo through the room. “He… he said after the murder was pinned on the Underground Resistance, she would sit beside him on the throne, queen of the kingdom his father gave him as gift.”
“He didn’t say once the Resistance did their part?”
She shook her head slowly, damp waves of loose hair
falling across her face. She reached up to tuck them behind her ear. Her hands were trembling. He hadn’t noticed right away, but he saw it then and felt guilt sink like sludge into the pit of his empty stomach. “No. I just assumed he was planning to pin it on the Resistance. I didn’t… Are you saying they’re part of it?”
“Who’s part of what?”
“The Alvarii Underground,” Lorelei said. “Bren, are you insinuating they were party to Trystay’s plan?”
“I don’t know that for a fact, no, but if they are…”
“If they are, why would Yovenna send us here?”
The fear that flashed in her eyes then made him regret his suspicions. She was right. Yovenna would have seen if their coming to Nua Duaan was a danger. She would never have sent them. Gods, he was such an idiot, but their cold reception, the way the Alvarii made them wait until the afternoon of the following day to even respond to their request for entry. None of it made sense at all.
“You’re right,” he calmed. “You’re absolutely right. Yovenna would never have sent us here if we were in danger, but there is still something strange going on. It has never taken me so long to be received when I’ve visited here in the past, and now that we are here we’ve been put off until the morrow.”
“The hour isn’t all that late either, is it?” She furrowed her brow, as though her body didn’t quite know what to make of the dwindling sunlight beyond the window.
“Maybe they weren’t expecting us.” Finn’s face lengthened as the slow truth dawned on him when both Bren and Lorelei shot him disbelieving glances. “Right,” he nodded. “The seer. He would have known we were coming for years, I imagine.”
“Considering the crucial role Lorelei is to play in future events, yes. He would have known of her coming, perhaps long before she was ever even born.”
“What reason would they have to put us off, though?” She intervened before Finn could snap back, her arm reaching out to steady him at her side. “Do you think they’re hiding something?”
“I was told by the servant who showed me to my room we are not to wander the grounds while we are waiting to be received.”
“Yes,” Lorelei nodded. “He told us to rest, not to worry about a thing and they would bring us food.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want a bunch of strangers poking around my grounds either, to be perfectly honest,” Finn noted.
“That’s not the point. The point is he went out of his way to ensure I knew that. As if he was suggesting they had something to hide, and when I asked him about it, he was quite flabbergasted.”
“So, the question then, is what do the Alvarii have to hide from us?”
“I guess the only way to find out is to wander the grounds,” Lorelei said, a playful hint of malice flashing in her amber eyes.
“Wait a minute. You spoke with Gwendoliir downstairs. What did he say?”
“Nothing worth noting, except that at the present moment the King Under the City has more pressing matters than the ones we bring to lay at his feet.”
“What kind of pressing matters?” Lorelei wondered aloud.
“He didn’t say, but I can’t shake the feeling something strange is afoot here.”
“Now I won’t be able to shake it either,” she commiserated. “So, what should we do? Do you think we should poke around the grounds? See if we can find something out?”
“Princess, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It isn’t a good idea,” Bren agreed, “but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.” He was surprised by his own admission. Not that he wasn’t a risk-taker, but what was about to follow would put that which he promised to protect in danger. “I’ve already been warned, told my welcome here in Nua Duaan could be revoked as quickly as it was extended, but the two of you…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Finn’s large hand shot up, palm open and just inches away from shoving into Brendolowyn’s chest. “Are you out of your bleeding mind? If she goes out there and starts poking around…”
His face flushed and heated with shame, his stomach tightening and lurching, but he held his ground. “Were you told when brought up here to stay in your rooms and not go poking around?”
“Not in those exact words, but…”
“But nothing, Princess.”
Ignoring Finn, Lorelei caught Brendolowyn’s meaning quickly, her eyes lighting up as she nodded. “If we get caught, we could always tell them we were looking for the kitchens and got lost. I am really hungry…”
“Lore, you’re not seriously considering doing something this…”
“Reckless?” she answered, arching her brow with a sly grin. “Isn’t Reckless your middle name?”
“There’s a difference between recklessness and flat out stupidity.”
“Look who’s talking…”
“Not a very big difference,” she shot back. “If Bren is right, and they are hiding something…”
“What if it’s something that has nothing to do with us?”
“What if it has everything to do with us?”
“You’re not going to back down from this, are you?”
Brendolowyn really did feel guilty, as he crossed his arms and watched them bicker back and forth. For the first time since they’d left Dunvarak, he didn’t like that he was driving a wedge between them. It made his guts sour and his heart ache because while she seemed to be enjoying herself as she argued with her would-be mate, they really could endanger their stay if the two of them were caught. It would be his fault if they were ousted from the city before they were given the chance to speak with the seer and present Hodon’s terms for an alliance to the King Under the City.
He started to withdraw from his own convictions, opened his mouth to tell them he was wrong, but before he could speak the words, Finn threw up his arms in defeat and said, “Fine! But you stay with me the entire time, and the first sign of danger…”
“I highly doubt we’re going to come upon anything dangerous,” Lorelei rolled her eyes. “We’re just looking for the kitchens, after all.”
And just like that it was decided. He’d convinced them both with very little coercing to prowl around the seer’s estate in an unfamiliar city filled with people who might very well deny Dunvarak an alliance if they made even the slightest move toward offending their delicate sensibilities.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The magic of the setting Nua Duaan sun mimicked the patterns of the aboveground orb from which it borrowed its likeness. It passed slowly across a false sky laden with the wispy afterthought of clouds tinged in shades of violet passing into pink and orange before the gold edges of light dwindled beyond the horizon. Lorelei stopped to peer out the windows, breath caught in her throat and completely mesmerized by the beauty of a sunset that wasn’t even real.
Yet it was one of the realest sunsets she’d ever seen in her life.
“How do they do it?” she muttered into her shoulder, unable to draw her eyes away from the window.
Finn wasn’t paying attention. He was at her back, edging slowly down the hallway and trying his luck with the doors lining the second floor corridor. Each of them was locked, as were the unoccupied rooms on the third floor, and the frustration was only accentuated by the inhibitions he had about sneaking through their host’s manor like little thieves.
“Do what?” he muttered, only half paying attention.
“The magic that makes these cities so…” Words lost on her tongue, a breath escaped her and fluttered through the thin curtains hanging over the thin glass in the windows. “I don’t know, they’re just so real, and yet… nothing about them is real at all, is it?”
“I have no idea.”
She wasn’t sure if he had no idea if they were real, or how the magic worked, but she didn’t ask him to elaborate because she knew he didn’t care about such things. Finn was not simple by any means. In fact, she was starting to think he might just be the most complicated person she’d ever met in her life. He didn’t feel
the need to bog his mind down with explanations to the many things that made the world go around, not in the same way she did.
At times she found herself wondering how she could be expected to spend the rest of her days with someone who didn’t question the world, and yet there was something comforting about his point of view. He stuck to what he knew. Very rarely did he question what was laid out before him; he accepted it and went about his business with the guidance it provided. When there was no guidance, he often did things anyway, believing everything would be made clear when the time was right.
Like his feelings for her. Never once had he questioned them, even when they were still strangers. He accepted them, embraced them and hadn’t looked back since.
Sometimes she wondered if he resented the fact that he’d been given no choices, but it didn’t seem like he did. That made her feel guilty. Part of her resented not having a choice in the matter, even though she was rather fond of the most infuriating person she’d ever met.
“None of these doors are open,” he grumbled at her back. “I don’t know if that’s suspicious, or not. I mean, if I had a house this size I wouldn’t want just anybody poking in an out of the rooms unless they had good reason.”
“It’s probably not suspicious at all,” she muttered, withdrawing her gaze from the dwindling light of the false sun and turning around to watch him. He edged quietly toward the next door, surprisingly agile and silent as he crept and curled his fingers around the knob. He jiggled; it didn’t give and he dropped his arm at his side with an exasperated exhale.
“This is probably the dumbest thing I’ve done to date.”
“Really?” She tried to stifle her disbelieving giggles, bringing a hand up over her mouth to smother the sound. “I find that hard to believe,” she managed.
Finn’s brow furrowed, the bridge of his nose wrinkling as he narrowed both eyes at her and scowled. “Believe it or not, I earned my name taking risks no one else was brave enough to take, not because I’m an idiot.”
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