Dark of Winter: A Between the Worlds novel

by Morgan Daimler

  “I understand,” Allie said. “I’d rather camp than risk it, so that’s fine.”

  He nodded, “Then we have a deal.”

  He turned to the others and gestured one of them forward, “Allie this is Kisusq. Kisusq, Allie. And her elf friend. Don’t let her get killed, I really want those books. Nice to meet you Allie, by the way my name is Wiyon. Good luck.”

  With that he and the others disappeared back into the woods leaving her with Sal and Kisusq. It was hard to judge age on the Makiawisug who all managed to look like children and grown men at the same time, but Allie guessed their new friend was probably one of the more experienced members of Wiyon’s group. He had a certain cynical air to him that Allie usually associated with the older elves. Also a look on his face of someone who has just unexpectedly been stuck babysitting and isn’t thrilled with the prospect. Like Wiyon he was wearing a fur cloak over jeans and boots, but his cloak was a lighter color. Allie guessed it was made of rabbit, and tried to restrain the urge to pet it.

  “Hi Kisusq,” she said doing her best to pronounce his name exactly as Wiyon had. “Don’t worry about us, we’ll do our best to follow your lead. I’ll be honest with you though I have a bad ankle so I can only walk so fast.”

  He tilted his head to one side, looking between her and Sal, who had remained silent throughout this entire exchange. “I don’t know how it is with elves but I wouldn’t force a pregnant woman to go faster than she’s able to whether she has two good legs or a bad limp. If you need to rest you tell me and we’ll rest.”

  “Got it,” Allie said, vowing not to complain and hold the group up. Unless it got to where she couldn’t walk or her innate clumsiness resulted in her landing on her butt, she’d keep up with them.

  “What about him though? He gonna be a problem?” Kisusq asked, eyeing Sal as if he was expecting a reaction.

  Sal flushed and looked at Allie, but kept his mouth shut. She wasn’t sure why he wasn’t saying anything, but at the moment she was glad. This deal was going to get them out of trouble and back to Jess and Bleidd, she didn’t want Sal to mess it up pitching an ego fit now. When the silence stretched out she looked back at the Makiawisug, “He’ll be fine. And if he isn’t I’ll deal with him.”

  Kisusq cocked an eyebrow but nodded, “Yeah I heard with elves the women run the show. Alright then. Let’s get moving. We got a few hours of sunlight before we need to camp and there’s a good spot I think we can reach if we get going.”

  “Works for me,” Allie said. “Come on Sal.”

  To her surprise Sal walked up right behind her, and as they headed off into the west he stayed within arm’s reach. His feelings were a jumble of things that she couldn’t quite sort out, but she knew he was uneasy. Still Allie thought as they hiked in the direction of the setting sun, as long as he behaves himself and doesn’t pull any typical elven bs because he’s having to follow the lead of one of the lesser Fey we should be okay. It’s still weirding me out that he’s acting so, I don’t know, passive and letting me make all the decisions but I’m not going to complain. If it was Jess or Bleidd I’d have arguments every step of the way because they think they know better and neither of them like admitting elves aren’t the greatest thing the Gods ever invented.

  *******************

  Bleidd sat next to the fire adding wood whenever it burned low. It was, perhaps, unnecessary at this point as they needed neither the heat nor the light but it allowed him to feel useful while everyone rested. Technically he was on guard duty, protecting the others, as Brynneth and Tashlin slept and Jess lay down and rested. However all was quiet, and in truth Bleidd wasn’t sure how much of a defense he could muster if they were attacked by anything powerful enough to breach the wards. The magical barriers he’d raised would act like an energetic electric fence against most minor things, which was a comfort. Anything significant enough to get through them though would probably find easy prey and that thought weighed on the former Outcast’s mind. So he sat and fed the fire and watched the shadows cast by the sun shift across the sky.

  Jess had contacted the captain – their captain Bleidd reminded himself, his fingers reaching down to trace the badge at his waist – and informed him of the events of the morning, their current state and their location. Zarethyn had decided not to send more Elven Guard but instead had contacted the Queen’s Guard, the elven equivalent of the standing army, to come in and deal with the Pesht and evacuate them. Bleidd rather hoped by that point they wouldn’t need assistance getting out, as the Queen’s Guard would be a day or more getting to them and by then, if their luck had turned Allie would have reached them and Brynneth and Tashlin would be healed enough to hike out on their own.

  Meanwhile he sat and watched the fire burn and the light shift and he wondered if he had made the right choice. He had not been exaggerating when he had told Jess that the last time he had felt this exhausted was after he’d been shot, but that had been a different kind of exhaustion. That had been a purely physical tiredness, as his body struggled to recover from his brush with death. Now he was not only physically exhausted but also magically drained, and, although he may admit it only to himself emotionally drained as well. Too much had happened too quickly for him to process and the frantic pace of the last several days had given him the luxury of not thinking. Now though with nothing else to do but think he was forced to confront his feelings, and he found himself wishing desperately for a drink. His body ached, the cuts and bruises from his short fight with the creature as well as the old injury in his chest. When he had seen Jess about to die, the Pesht – if that’s what it truly was – poised over him, he had panicked and thrown the most powerful offensive spell he knew at the creature. Even had he been fresh and if he hadn’t just spent several days using magic at every opportunity because he could, that spell would have pushed his limits; as it was he was a breath away from collapse. Only sheer stubbornness and habit had allowed him to manage the basic wards on the little cave.

  I could not bear to lose them both Bleidd thought stirring the fire up. Not at once. Could not. Why must the gods do this to me? Haven’t I been punished enough for my misdeeds, which weren’t even truly my misdeeds? I have acknowledged my mistakes, I have paid for them. I earned a second chance. I deserve this, I deserve happiness. I cannot stop myself from loving them anymore than I could just decide to stop breathing. I have not been this happy since before I entered the Guard the first time. Yet here we are, Allie is missing and our unborn son with her and Jess is injured. Could have died. Almost died. If I hadn’t joined the Guard when I did, if I wasn’t with him, as the mage for this squad when this happened…well Mariniessa is a clever girl but she isn’t at my level. He’d have been killed.

  He touched the badge again tracing its lines and curves. This was a good decision not just for me personally to show everyone I have value and I was redeemed, completely, but because it put me where I needed to be save him. I will never regret that. And yet it will upset Allie, and it will take us away from her. He grimaced at that thought getting up to add more wood, again, to the fire. I understand she needs us, at least one of us all the time, with her. But Jess needs me with him as well, obviously. I have to protect them both.

  He looked over at Jess where he was lying on their shared blankets reading a book and resting his injured leg. He thought of Allie, somewhere in the woods, hopefully hiking towards the Border and around to a safer route. And he thought of the child she was carrying, a son that was hers and which she kept telling him over and over was also theirs, his and Jess’s. And which he knew was his biologically, something that his own culture said was superseded by Allie’s claim on the child but which human culture said was significant. He had not been pleased to learn she was pregnant, fearing that her life would be at risk needlessly for a child she wasn’t ready to have. He had even resented it as a victory for Jess, something his family wanted desperately, and Allie was giving to them. Yet as she had persisted in trying to get him to see – in defiance
of his culture’s usual avoidance of acknowledging unborn children – the value in his son he had slowly become emotionally invested. He denied it to her, and to Jess, and even to himself. He had spent months trying to find a way to understand what all of that meant when his head told him he had no claim on the child and his heart told him it belonged to him, but now that the child’s life was in danger he was afraid not just for Allie but for their son. For his son.

  Everything was tenuous and uncertain. He wanted a drink desperately, and that reminded him of his promise to Jess. He got up and slowly added more wood to the fire.

  ************************

  Sal walked close behind Allie as they moved steadily west, following the lead of the strange native Fey. He was filled with turmoil, his mind skipping restlessly from one topic to another as he tried to process everything.

  His father was dead. Urien was dead. It was hard to believe even now although he did not doubt Allie’s word. All the months he had spent fearing his father’s wrath and trying to find a way to get back in his father’s good graces, and it was all moot now. Varessial had overreached himself badly this time and it had cost him his life. Somehow Sal couldn’t be too upset by that, and the news of Urien’s death made him want to dance for sheer joy; the trow guard had delighted in tormenting him for as long as Sal could remember. He did not ever want to think again of some of the things Urien had made him do or had done to him because his father allowed everyone to treat Sal badly. He hoped the trow had died slowly and painfully.

  There was some irony in Varessial ending this way, after a millennia of careful maneuvering and plotting. Sal knew that his father, despite his sadistic tendencies, had always been an expert in dealing with other members of the Dark Court, knowing exactly who to intimidate and who to kiss up to. To see him finally laid low by a powerful woman, when he had utterly failed to even account for the possibility that the situation wasn’t entirely under his control, was delightful.

  When his father had heard rumors that a copy of a specific grimoire, a book he’d been trying to acquire during the Wars, had survived the destruction of the coven who originally possessed it he’d sent Ferinyth and Daeriun out to find it. His cousin’s sons, one a mage, should have been more than capable of handling such a simple task. Human written and human owned it should have been easy. Finding out the book had been destroyed was a setback that could have cost his father dearly, since he had bound much of his ambition for the book up in his plans to gain ground in a new Holding, one that had no existing Dark Court presence. But before being burned it had been read by a young woman of mixed ancestry and that had kept his father’s quest alive. He had seen the mixed-blooded girl as inconsequential. And had she been as Ferinyth had described her, she should have been, but looking back Sal realized that they all should have been more cautious than to simply take Ferinyth’s word for any of it. It was no secret that of the twins Daeriun was the brains and Ferinyth the muscle, and that Ferinyth had a passionate hatred of women, which was thinly veiled at the best of times. With Daeriun dead none of them, least of all Sal who knew his fate rested on success, should have simply listened to Ferinyth’s ideas about the girl.

  And yet, Sal thought as he walked and watched Allie’s back, not fully trusting these strange lesser Fey, had things not fallen out exactly as they have along the way I would never have been sent to Ashwood. I would never have learned about life in a bordertown. About television and CDs and fast food. Never learned to drive a car. Never met Alice and the children. I would not be free now, while everyone else is dead.

  Thinking of Alice made him sad, as it had every time she’d come to mind in the past few days. He couldn’t understand it and so he worried at the feeling like an open wound. He reminded himself that she was nothing to him but a convenience, a means to an end, a warm bed and roof over his head. He’d been nice to her to keep her favor, but he’d done much the same with everyone else in his life who he’d needed to stay on the good side of, including his father. True he’d never voluntarily had such a consistent lover, but sex was just sex after all. And yet…and yet his mind kept returning to her wondering how badly Urien had hurt her. Wondering if the children were alright. What would have happened to them if their mother was…unable to keep caring for them? How does that even work in human society? he wondered, perplexed. She has no kin that she’s ever spoken of. Tommy is only a little child, far too young to care for his sisters alone. They need an adult. If Alice isn’t there, what happens to them? And that of course brought him right back to worrying about Alice, and then wondering why he cared.

  He was glad that Allie had stepped up and taken charge. He was tired of thinking too much about things that seemed to have no answer and he had no idea what his future held now. Allie, in his eyes, for all her human garb and foreign ways had taken on the role of an elven woman and it was far easier to let her lead and simply do as she told him, without question.

  He wished he’d done that from the start, and avoided all this headache and heartache. It was dizzying, and he did not like it at all.

  Chapter 9 – Sunday Night

  Just before sunset Kisusq called a halt, which suited Allie just fine since she wasn’t sure she could go much further. Sheer stubbornness had carried her the last half mile, but even her stubbornness had its limits. Not that she wanted to admit that to anyone.

  The Makiawisug paused, looking around, then gestured to their right at a tight grouping of pine trees. “Allie if you want to rest for a bit, the elf and I can get the camp set up.”

  She started to protest that just because she was pregnant didn’t mean she couldn’t help too, then saw him giving her bad leg a worried look. Right idiot she berated herself he isn’t pulling some kind of lame macho man card on you, he noticed you’re limping like your leg is about to fall off and he’s probably worried about how you’re going to be fit to hike tomorrow. So for once don’t be an idiot, idiot, and just listen to the person who you thought was expert enough to be worth $500 in books to get you through this. She swallowed hard then nodded. “Right. I’ll find somewhere to sit under the trees. Sal, go with Kisusq and do whatever he tells you to help get things set up.”

  They both looked reflexively at Sal but the young elf stepped forward without complaint, then said in English, “Alright.”

  It wasn’t the most enthusiastic response but even that much willingness clearly surprised Kisusq. The Makiawisug grunted slightly then gestured for Sal to follow him. “Come on then.”

  Allie limped under the shelter of the trees, and eased herself down to the ground, unsure if she’d be able to get back up again. She’d been awake at that point, except for the one short nap, for almost 36 straight hours and had pushed herself more physically than she could ever remember doing in her life. She put one hand on her abdomen, feeling inwards for the spark that was her child; his emotions were lazy and content and she relaxed slightly. She wished she was with Bleidd and Jess, not for the energy she could get from them, although there was no way not to think of that, but because she missed them desperately. Talking to them in her mind wasn’t enough. Even projecting into Jess’s mind to feel like she was almost with them wasn’t enough. She wanted to feel them holding her and to be held. She wanted to feel safe again. She felt tears pricking her eyes and swallowed them down, shaking her head slightly to force the emotions back. Now was not the time to break down.

  She had just gotten herself more or less under control when Sal popped under the tree branches. “Everything is ready Allie.”

  Nodding she struggled to her feet, wincing at the pain that shot through her bad ankle. She was definitely going to have to try to rest it tonight and go easy tomorrow. She followed Sal out and a short way up the little valley they were in, to a spot with a small fire and heavy canvas tent. She raised an eyebrow at Sal who inclined his head in a shrug, “He conjured the tent up with magic, I think. I’m not totally sure, but it felt like the same sort of energy we use when we shift clothing.”

/>   “Interesting,” Allie said, meaning it. “So maybe when they travel they keep their supplies stored but accessible in the same way elves can access their clothing when they need to.”

  He shrugged again, “I don’t know, but it’s useful.”

  “Is Kisusq in the tent?”

  “No, he went to find us dinner,” Sal said.

  “We could have shared our food with him,” Allie pointed out, earning a blank look from Sal. She sighed.

  “Do we need to get more fire wood?” she asked, instead of saying what she wanted to say. She was 90% sure you couldn’t verbally bludgeon empathy into someone.

  “I’ll go find a supply that’s dry to add to what we already have,” he said. “You rest.”

  “I should go with you, just in case there’s anything dangerous.”

  He refrained from pointing out that she could barely walk, instead gripping the hilt of one of the daggers, “I can protect myself if I need to. Don’t worry.”

  Before she could say anything else he disappeared into the underbrush and having nothing productive to do she went over to the fireside and found a small rock outcropping to sit on. It wasn’t the most comfortable perch, but it let her take weight off her leg without sitting all the way on the ground and having to struggle up again. A moment after she settled Kisusq emerged from her right, carrying four dressed, skinned rabbits. It was a strange sight to see the small Fey carrying rabbits that were nearly as long, stretched out, as he was tall but Allie was happy to see he’d had luck. After a day of nothing but dry bread, dry meat, and hard cheese the idea of fresh rabbit was mouthwatering.