Memories of his childhood were nothing compared to the destruction before them. During the attacks on their settlements, the king’s army burned only the towns, leaving enough screaming survivors behind to put out the fires before they could spread to the trees. Enough people to spread word to anyone who might doubt Aelfric’s power. The destruction before them was devastating, the hungry flames having devoured everything in sight and not a living soul remained behind to tell the tale.
Beyond the still smoldering trees he saw further east than he’d ever seen from the confines of the Edgelands in his twenty-eight years. A beautiful, green land twirling gold, copper and ruby leaves, as if in mockery of the dark smudge of land no longer habitable enough to call home. How had they stopped the fires from spilling into Aelfric’s lands? It was a strange thing, the way they just stopped at the boundary, almost as if some foul magic contained them.
His heart ached inside his chest, and it took every ounce of strength in his bones to keep moving past the desolation of Breken and on toward Drekne. He was filled with such dread, at times he wondered if that made it harder for him to breathe than the ash-thick air. The ghastly remains of Breken still sizzled under the sporadic rain spitting at them as they walked through the wreckage. Frigga gasped and turned her scarf-covered face into his shoulder when they began spotting the burnt and twisted bodies of unsuspecting men, women and children who’d died in their homes and in the streets, some of them trying desperately to flee the flames.
The only part of the small village untouched by fire was the emptied grain pillar, towering like a giant over the remains of the mill the people there once used to grind their harvest into flour. Its window hung open like a gaping, empty mouth, catching on the slow breeze and squeaking on rusty hinges. It was a ghastly image, one he couldn’t get out of his mind even long after they passed through the town that no longer was.
He led them into the destruction slowly, though the greater part of him wanted to climb aback and ride swiftly away, never looking back. There was a nagging feeling inside that they should make for Great Sontok and flee into Rimian so they could ride for Dunvarak with warning, but he knew they would never make it past the king’s men.
They might very well never see Dunvarak again.
The trepidation slowing his steps was in part due to the heartache awaiting him a day and half’s ride north. He already knew what awaited them in Drekne, and coupled with the ever-decreasing likelihood of finding his sister, dread churned in his guts as he imagined the still smoking skeletal remains of the quaint and beautiful village he’d called home most of his life.
What kind of monsters could commit such wretched atrocities against the innocent?
“Men,” Frigga choked behind her scarf, as if in answer to his thought.
And though he knew their own fathers were once capable men who made their livelihood wreaking havoc on the surrounding countryside, he did not further upset her by pointing out the awful truth.
Their people, the U’lfer, settled; they changed, and most of those who survived the War of Silence had little, if anything at all, to do with the grievances between King Aelfric and their people. Their lives were as close to peaceful as the oppressed could endure without shackles, a peace his father paid for with his blood. Now the children of all who’d sacrificed themselves for peace were gone. The U’lfer would be no more.
The once casually overgrown road between Drekne and Breken was cleared by the march of ten thousand feet heading south, the dust of their passage barely settled.
Drizzling drops of rain pelted their ash-smudged faces, dripping clean streaks through the soot and rolling thick black droplets onto their filthy cloaks. Frigga’s wide eyes continually surveyed the desolation, always on the lookout for signs of life, but Vilnjar could look no more. He wanted to close his eyes and unsee the desolation, to throw himself down and yield to cries of rage.
Only hatred could produce such destruction. The self-righteous cruelty that allowed one man to claim superiority over another made his empty stomach roil and churn acidically inside him.
He’d gone back and forth in search of blame all morning, laying the fault at Lorelei’s feet more often than not. Had she never come onto their lands, had his brother not found her and brought her back to Drekne how different would things be? The U’lfer would still live their peaceful lie; they would eke out a meager living until one by one they were no more. Lorelei brought darkness with her, and in her wake followed the ash of despair.
Frigga clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and scowled at him for ignoring the bigger picture. Yes, it was tragic. In no way would she claim otherwise, but there was still hope. There was always hope.
He wished he could believe in her optimism, but optimism had never been his strong suit. Perhaps that was why they were so perfect for one another. She brought balance to him, filling him with hope where he’d never find it on his own, making him feel strong when all he wanted to do was give up.
“How many days has it been since the Light of Madra left for Great Sorrow’s Peak?”
Vilnjar couldn’t remember anymore. Time itself felt so strange, the moments dragging on for hours, or passing by so quickly he could barely grasp them.
“Ten days,” he said, then added, “I think.”
“Maybe twelve,” she proffered. “Do you think they’ve reached the mountain yet?”
He glanced up and saw her gaze turned eastward, her pale eyes staring toward the distant edge of mountains rolling ever eastward through Leithe and did not peak until they reached the northernmost edge of the land.
“It’s impossible to say,” he answered.
“Do you think I will feel it?” she asked. “When she takes back the Horns of Llorveth?”
The people of Dunvarak believed reclaiming Llorveth’s Horns would wake their wolves, and who was he to argue the likelihood? In the last couple weeks he’d certainly seen stranger things, heard far more unbelievable stories.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe you will.”
He couldn’t guess what would really happen when Lorelei and his brother retrieved the lost horns of a god Vilnjar never believed more strongly in his life had turned his back on his people. How could Llorveth stand aside and simply watch as the last of his people were ground into ash and dust?
“Llorveth has not abandoned us,” she said.
But his hopelessness in the face of newfound awareness startled him more than ever before.
They truly were the last, that handful of survivors who’d managed to escape the destruction and make their way south, his sister, wherever she was, his brother traveling north.
Already, they’d been so few, and now… Now there were less than a handful of full-blooded U’lfer left in the world. The wolves who once wandered would soon be no more, for how could a ragged band of half-bloods who couldn’t even embrace their beast spirits stand against five thousand soldiers who’d been given free rein to destroy them. Even the memory of U’lfer would be wiped clean from the world.
Gone, like the Dvergr, the Seraphii, the Drakiiri and the Aqatiiri. Only their memory would remain in the annals of history. Unless the tyrant king chose to blot them out entirely, the way he’d blotted so much information out of Lorelei’s education as a child.
Was that what the world had to look forward to, if Aelfric wasn’t stopped? Adulterated history, where he withheld whatever he didn’t think fit into his world?
His heart cried out to Llorveth, though his mind did not want to believe. The beast beneath his skin longed for freedom, to raise his face to the light of the moons and cry out to the god who’d fathered them and beg for their people to be spared.
Only Frigga’s presence seemed to placate the beast. With all the world around him lost, at least he still had her. And perhaps finding his sister would help to restore his lost faith, but the likelihood of finding Ruwena grew slimmer with each step they took north.
There’d been a fleeting moment w
hen he swore he’d caught her scent on the wind, and hope rose up so unexpectedly inside him he almost embraced it. But the wind shifted and the scent was gone as quickly as he’d caught it, and though he followed the direction of that wind, he did not pick up Rue’s trace again.
The only thing that kept him moving was the wavering certainty that he would know if one of his siblings was dead. For the moment he still felt them both, the distant but familiar comfort of their life-force seemed to pulse through his blood.
Surely he would know if one of them was lost.
Again, Frigga’s hand lowered onto his shoulder in an act of unspoken comfort, and loosening his fingers from the leather reins, he patted the top of her hand before leading them onward, toward Drekne, knowing when at last he saw his home the final thread of strength that kept him moving would snap, and only Frigga would be able to hold him together.
He hoped wherever his brother was, whatever they were doing, they succeeded in their task. He didn’t know if taking back the Horns of Llorveth would reinstate the god’s lost power, or even if it would wake the wolves within the half-bloods, but the greater part of him wasn’t expecting much. No matter the things he’d seen with his own eyes since the so-called Light of Madra made her way into their lives, he was more convinced than ever Llorveth wasn’t listening at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Finn knew he should have been paying attention to the ancient Alvarii seer when he started talking about important things, and for the most part he was listening, but his stomach always took precedence. He’d eaten only a little the night before, certainly not enough to be considered a meal, and then he’d gotten up several times throughout the night to dig through his pack for stray bits of jerked meat that might have fallen out while traveling. There weren’t any, much to his dismay, and he spent the long night tossing and turning, listening to his stomach rumble and worrying about Lorelei an entire room away. The seer’s servants never brought the meal they promised, a slight the old Alvarii continually apologized for once he realized it had been made, but a hungry warrior knew very little in the way of forgiveness.
Besides, all he’d talked about since sending for them mid-morning was the magic required to hold a city the size of Nua Duaan together. Finn didn’t care about magic or the fact that it took an expenditure of no less than sixty elves per day to maintain the lifelike illusion of their fair, but altogether make-believe city.
It baffled him, even after a simple explanation quite obviously dumbed down for his benefit. The entire city, according to the seer, was held together by combination of the most powerful illusion and conjuration magic in the world, offering the underground renegades a false sun to rise by every morning and illusory moons to retire by each night. A pattern of stars that perfectly mimicked the night sky above, complete with changing cycles each season, decorated the darkness and made the impressive bit of magic holding Dunvarak together seem like child’s play. Even the vast endlessness of the sea rolling in beyond the seer’s gardens was remarkable, but Finn didn’t give a damn how it worked. Just so long as it worked.
“So, this chair I’m sitting on,” he began in a smug, instigative tone, “if I stop believing in it, will it drop out from under me?” The joke was meant to amuse Lorelei, but judging from the glare she shot over her shoulder it missed its mark. Shrugging off the chill of that look, he muttered, “What? I think it’s a perfectly valid question.”
“Not exactly,” Gwendoliir shook his head. “While a certain degree of magic does require belief the mind is a…”
And that was where he lost Finn again.
His stare remained on Lorelei, who ignored him as she leaned inward to absorb the seer’s wisdom—which, wasn’t going to do them a damn bit of good where they were going.
Everything amazed her, and sometimes he forgot what a sheltered life she led before he found her in that field. She’d been denied the glory of magic, subjected to collared Alvarii who could barely summon the energy to maintain their own body temperature, much less conjure an illusion. Everything she believed before he met her was a carefully constructed falsehood designed for reasons no one understood. Perhaps King Aelfric hid her from the truth of her nature in hopes lack of awareness would prevent her from becoming a wolf, or maybe he just hadn’t wanted his daughters to see what a tyrant he really was.
Either way, the world around her was an eye-opening experience that made her giddy at times, and while he appreciated seeing her smile, he really couldn’t get himself excited about every little thing they happened upon, even if he felt her joy to the very core of his being. The fact that his lack of excitement annoyed her made him roll his eyes, but only after she turned away and didn’t actually see him do it.
Finn was no great world traveler himself. He’d never left the Edgelands before their exiling, but he still knew a lot more about life than she did. At least he liked to think he did. The few old warriors who still remembered traveling the world before the War of Silence filled his head with stories so vivid, he sometimes felt as though he’d been there himself.
So while the old elven seer droned on about the magic of Nua Duaan, Finn tuned out the sound of his voice and found himself wondering what was stuffed into the little pastries he’d been pushing between his lips since he sat down. He hoped like hell the food was real. He didn’t think his stomach could handle the illusion of food.
It tasted real enough, similar to mutton, but so soft it practically melted on his tongue with every bite. Leaning across the table, he grabbed several more of those pastries and brought them to his plate, suffering another glare from Lorelei that suggested she wished she knew enough magic herself to burn him to a crisp.
Little did she know, she didn’t need magic. He could feel the flaring fire of her temper boiling his own blood in his veins, and he already knew he’d never hear the end of his gluttony once they were free from prying Alvarii eyes.
He couldn’t help it. He was a big man; his body needed fuel if he was meant to stay alert.
So he smiled at her, his grin a smug flourish daring her to scold him for doing the one thing he did naturally: eat. When he reached for the carafe to fill his cup with golden wine that smelled similar to mead but tasted like grapes and flowers, she only looked away and refocused her attention on their host.
The Alvarii were being gracious enough at the moment, but the fact they’d allowed their guests to starve was not something he’d soon forget. Ensuring one’s guests were adequately fed was the first rule of hospitality—which he was quite sure the Alvarii invented. Even savages like him knew better.
Brendolowyn didn’t trust them either, which said quite a bit as far as Finn was concerned. To not trust one’s own people was something he could barely wrap his mind around, and his people had exiled him. Whatever they were up to, whatever it was they’d been hiding the night before, was starting to feel more and more like it had everything to do with their arrival.
They’d agreed not to make waves, or to let on that they’d overheard something they shouldn’t have the night before, but it wasn’t going to be easy keeping his mouth shut if that self-important windbag started telling Lorelei what he saw in her future. The minute he started touting prophecy, Finn was calling bullshit.
He reached across the table and snatched another stack of thin, fruit cakes. He lowered them onto his plate and slathered them in butter and a honeyed syrup that smelled like elderberries. He swore, one of the servants behind him clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a sound that almost prompted the U’lfer to turn over his shoulder and sneer with daring delight.
He wasn’t impressed by their fancy magic, flowery gestures and never ending grace, and he certainly wasn’t intimidated by them. Most of the Alvarii were so tall, he felt like a dwarf standing next to them and no one ever accused him of being short. But there was nothing menacing about them. They were too thin, like dried twigs he felt fairly certain could be easily snapped in hand. Llorveth alone knew how often he’
d thought about snapping Brendolowyn in such way since they’d met at Great Sontok.
And it really did seem, even though his experience with elves was severely limited—no, limited wasn’t even the right word, it was closer to nonexistent—that all Alvarii thought they were better than everyone else. Even the servants looked down their noses at him as they hovered over his shoulder, watching with distaste while they waited for him to finish his food so they could take the plates away. Was it really necessary to use so many dishes? He didn’t need a new plate every time he finished eating and moved to sample another morsel. It seemed like such a waste.
He couldn’t begin to imagine how easily they’d gotten under the skin of less tolerant people, but he was sure it hadn’t taken much. Especially if their earliest oppressor had been invited to dinner and then gawked at with disgust while attempting to enjoy the meal. Not that he thought haughtiness was in any way, shape or form good reason to enslave, persecute and drive an entire race of people underground, but he could see them grating on nerves with little to no effort at all.
An uncomfortable sensation moved through him, a strange tingling that made the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen. Instinct turned his head toward the seer and caught the old Alvarii staring at him. Gwendoliir’s upper lip curled into a smirk he made no effort to disguise and Finn wondered if the elf was reading his thoughts. He tried after that to hide how uncomfortable he was with it by continuing to think freely.
Go on, he silently dared, invade my mind and find out what I really think of you.
Gwendoliir didn’t seem to miss a beat, casually turning his attention toward Brendolowyn, who asked a question Finn himself hadn’t heard. He watched the Alvarii ponder his answer and then he began to speak, but the discomfort of what Finn was sure was a prying invasion of his thoughts did not disappear with the distraction.
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