Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3)

  But Alendra had. No wonder she couldn’t stand the sight of snakeskin on him. Damn mess.

  “Hey, kid, wanna lie down?” Kalaes was frowning.

  Elei thought about it and shook his head. He’d rather stay there until it was over, with something to distract his mind.

  Kalaes’ medallion was right before him, hanging from its thin chain, dull silver against Kalaes’ black shirt. The Seven Islands. Now why did that remind him of something — a pier by the sea and Jek and Afia...

  He unwrapped one arm from around his middle and reached for the pendant. “Pelia gave this to you.”

  Kalaes wrapped his fingers around the medallion. “How do you know?”

  “She told me about it once.” He tried to remember the dream. It crumbled like old paint when he tried to grasp at the images. “She asked me to read it.”

  “Read it?” Kalaes’ lips pursed. “It’s just a drawing of the islands, fe.”

  “She said—” Elei gasped around another spasm. Damn this medicine to the lowest hell. “She said she gave it away. For safekeeping. That I have to read the medallion, and use the number on the gun to unlock something and...” Gods, it sounded crazy. Then again, it was a mad world. “Said I have to bring the Gultur down.”

  “When did she say all that, fe?” Kalaes looked up at Hera. “Is he delirious, you think?”

  He raised a hand to Elei’s forehead, and Elei slapped it away. “I’m fine. Listen. I think she told me these things about two years ago, when I first started working for her. They made no sense to me back then, and I forgot about them. They come back in my dreams.”

  “And here I thought you were finally remembering,” Hera said, hard eyes glittering like glass. She came to sit at the table. “Or are they just dreams after all?”

  Elei shook his head. “I told you before, it’s all mixed up.”

  “He knew it was Pelia who gave me the medallion,” Kalaes said. “He couldn’t have known if Pelia hadn’t told him.”

  Hera flicked her hand dismissively, like swatting at a fly. “He could have guessed.”

  “Dreams are sometimes memories, fe!”

  “Dreams are just dreams, Kalaes.”

  Elei wished he knew who was right. “Can I see it?” He met Kalaes’ confused stare. “The medallion.”

  “Right.” Kalaes snorted, pulled the pendant over his head and handed it to Elei. “Read it.” He shrugged. “If there’s anything there to read.”

  Elei took the medallion and turned it over and over. On the front, in relief, were the seven islands, their names spelled in a curly font — Ker, Torq, Ert, Aue, Kukno, Ost, and Dakru in their center. Their relief shapes were polished, probably from Kalaes’ fingers, but around them the surface was duller, darker. Nothing else was written, on the front or the back. Damn riddles.

  Or just dreams, as Hera said — no memories. Not the truth. Disappointment lay heavy on his chest as he returned the medallion to Kalaes.

  “Forget it,” he whispered, feeling very tired all of a sudden, more tired than illness or physical weariness warranted — defeated, because it was all a lie. His stomach churned and he had to swallow hard to keep the sourness down.

  “But you’re right,” Hera said.

  That brought his gaze back up. “Huh?”

  “Now is the time to strike the regime. Before they manage to contain the outbreak, before they find an antidote for Rex. While they’re confused and fighting each other.”

  “We four are going to strike and utterly defeat the Gultur regime,” Kalaes drawled. “Uh huh. You’re out of your damn mind.” He rolled his eyes. “There’s no pissing way in the five hells.”

  “What if we had information others lacked?” Hera frowned. “If Pelia has hidden a clue in a safety box in Dakru City as to how to proceed, then we must find it.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe me,” Elei muttered.

  “I still do not,” Hera muttered. “I’m talking hypothetically.”

  Oh, right.

  “But if she did say those things to Elei,” Kalaes tugged on his braids, lips pursed, “then what’s the deal with the riddles? What if we never figure them out?”

  “She could not risk such information falling into the wrong hands.” Hera sat next to Elei, gazing at Kalaes’ medallion, now hanging again around his neck. “She picked Elei, gave him the gun and information, then sent him to you.”

  “Information she didn’t explain to him. She just injected him with Rex and gave him my address. Besides, she said nothing to me that I remember.” Kalaes scowled. “What if Elei didn’t make it to me? What if he didn’t survive Rex? What if I didn’t make it?”

  “She took a risk.” Hera’s voice held respect. “It was all a gamble.”

  “That’s a damn huge gamble if you ask me,” Kalaes rumbled.

  A new wave of pain and nausea, and Elei lurched to his feet, shoving Kalaes away. “Bathroom,” he managed to say before staggering out.

  “Elei!”

  He barely made it to the sink before it all came up. A hand fell on his shoulder, a cup of water was pushed into his hand. He used it to wash out the bitterness and sourness.

  “Is this supposed to be helping him, Hera?” Kalaes called through the door. “You know, throwing up, feeling like crap... You do realize he’s just skin and bones, and now he’s lost his dinner again.”

  What dinner? Elei thought fuzzily. He vaguely recalled eating some bread the previous day. No wonder nothing else came up but bile.

  Hera appeared in the opening. “Well, it appears telmion is still alive, and yes, that is a good thing, Kalaes. Now let us think more of what Pelia might have meant.”

  He followed them back to the kitchen, feeling like week-old roadkill. Telmion was always swift in taking one down. Any chink in cronion’s armor and it’d flared, holding him in a relentless grip. With Rex, he’d forgotten already how his gut clenched and twinged every day, the battles won and lost between telmion and cronion.

  They sat at the kitchen table, examining the medallion and the gun in turns. Kalaes shoved a cup of water into Elei’s hand and he sipped at it cautiously. The snakeskin on his cheek itched. He rubbed it, blinking at the tattoo on Kalaes’ hand, a black spiral.

  “What does it stand for?” He pointed.

  Kalaes lifted his hand. “This?” His lips twisted in a crooked smile. “Death.”

  Death? “Why do you have it?”

  “For those who are gone.”

  Elei’s eyes were closing. “The dead.” He had some of his own. Pelia, Albi. Maybe he should get a tattoo, too, to remember them by.

  “You’re falling asleep, fe. Go to bed.”

  “No.” He needed to make sense of Pelia’s words, to undo the knots of his dreams. He gestured at Kalaes’ medallion. “How can I read something that isn’t there? How can I find a box to open when I don’t know to whom it belongs? How can I get into Dakru City and reach the Palace?” Not to mention make it out alive?

  “These are good questions, fe.” Kalaes’ eyes glittered with amusement. “I just don’t think there’s an answer.”

  “There has to be.” He rubbed his face. “She must’ve given the medallion to you for a reason.” Or it was just a dream. His head felt heavy. “What did she tell you when she gave it to you?”

  “That it was for safekeeping. A family heirloom.” Kalaes scratched his head. “Said it was old and never to try and polish it because it could get destroyed.”

  “Destroyed?” Hera frowned. “Why, if it’s only the islands and their names? What is there to destroy?”

  Kalaes opened his mouth and closed it, blinking. “I just promised her, fe. I don’t know much about precious metals.”

  Roused, his heart racing, Elei straightened in his seat. “Do you think something could be written there?” Sweat rolled down his face, dripped into his eyes, and all the while cold shivers shook him. He probably should go to bed, but curiosity wouldn’t let him.

  “There’s only one way
to find out.” Hera went to the counter and opened a few cupboards, taking down containers. “The black staining is silver sulfide. Acid should remove it.” She pulled a small nepheline bottle from the cupboard. “Here. Vinegar.”

  Vinegar?

  She poured some into a cup, turned on the stove and held it above the hot plate for a few minutes. The smell brought tears to Elei’s eyes. Then she returned with the stinky cup and stood over Kalaes, thrusting out her hand, palm up.

  He hesitated, clutching the medallion. “What if it gets destroyed, like she said?” He looked down at it and his mouth tightened. “It’s her gift, the only thing I have left of her.”

  “Nothing will happen to it.” Hera wiggled her fingers, her eyebrows knitting. “Give me the medallion.”

  “First you said it was just a dream, now you want to drop my pendant into hot vinegar—”

  “The medallion, Kalaes,” she said with a long-suffering sigh.

  Elei could smell her anger rising, hot and sweet, and his stomach cramped again. As he bent over, he wondered if Hera, if Regina, would kill Kalaes. Kill them both.

  “Hey, fe.” Kalaes placed a hand on Elei’s shoulder, startling him. “Go to bed.”

  “Not yet.” Elei straightened doggedly even if it felt like needles stabbed through his skull. “I need to know first if something’s written on the medallion.”

  Kalaes withdrew his hand. “Aren’t you a stubborn one. Fine.” He quirked a rueful grin, lifted the medallion off his neck and dropped it onto Hera’s waiting palm. “Here.”

  She huffed, turning, and let it fall into the cup with a quiet splash. Her pale hand with the black lines on its bones shimmered, ghostly. The sound of the medallion clinking inside the ceramic, as she gently swirled the liquid, echoed in Elei’s skull.

  Hera peered into the cup and fished out the medallion. She sat down and placed the wet metal on the table. She rubbed it with a towel, her hand trembling slightly.

  “What do you see?” Kalaes leaned closer to her. “Hera?”

  “I think there is a word on the back.”

  Kalaes snagged the pendant and pulled it over. Elei squinted at its now shiny surface.

  “Below,” he read. The shape of a mermaid curled decoratively underneath. “What does it mean?”

  “Under,” Kalaes said, nodding sagely.

  Elei resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, but what did she mean? Under what?”

  Kalaes flipped the medallion over to the relief of the Seven Islands. His thumb flicked over their shapes and names, dark brows heavy over his eyes. “This...” he said, his voice a little hoarse, “this...”

  Words. Carved around the rim. “What does it say?” Elei whispered.

  Kalaes swallowed hard and pushed the medallion toward Elei. His eyes shone a little too bright. “You read it. She asked you to, fe.”

  Elei lifted the medallion in his hand. The letters were tiny like dots. “You, of roads and crossways, Of heaven, of earth, and sea as well.” He looked up at the others. “What the hells is this? A poem?”

  “The hymn,” Kalaes breathed, eyes comically wide. “I can’t believe it.”

  “What hymn?” Elei frowned at him.

  “You, the saffron-clad, among the tombs, Dancing with dead souls,” Kalaes whispered. “You, terrible Queen, Devourer of beasts, ungirded, possessed of form unapproachable.”

  “How do you know the hymn?” Hera’s breath stuttered, her hands curling. “She taught it to you, did she not?”

  Pelia.

  “But what does it mean?” Elei ran his fingertip over the letters and thought he saw Pelia’s face, heard her voice, her laughter. “A hymn about what?”

  Kalaes laughed suddenly, a bark of laughter. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He threw his head back and laughed some more, the beads in his braids clinking.

  Hera shook her head, wonder lighting her dark eyes.

  “What is it?” Elei looked from one to the other, wondering if they were drunk. “Kal?”

  “A hymn.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and slammed his fist on the table, making dishes and cups jump and vinegar slosh. “To Hecate.”

  “Hecate. The Gultur,” Elei turned to Hera, “that you said disappeared.”

  “The very same.” She looked at him under lowered lids.

  “So the safety box would belong to Hecate.” Elation chased away the pain in his body, in his head, in his heart. “We can find it, see what she left there.”

  “Yeah, and how are we going to enter Dakru City?” Kalaes grimaced. “How are we gonna enter under the noses of the pissing Gultur?” He raked a hand through his spiky hair. “Call me a party-pooper, but I kinda think that could be a snag in the plan.”

  It finally sank in that Kalaes was talking as if he was going, too. Elei’s mind froze. “Hold on a second. You’re not going. I’m going.” Elei dropped the medallion on the table top and it spun, flashing both sides. “Alone.”

  “The hells.” Kalaes threw him a narrow look. “We’re all going.”

  “What? No.” The headache was back, pounding on the back of his eyeballs. “You stay here. Or better still, go find your family. I’ll be fine.” He tried to order his thoughts around the headache. “You said it already, you can’t take care of me. And Hera...” He waved a hand. “She has work to do and a life to live. That woman at the hospital...” Why was everything hazy? He scrubbed a hand over his face, tried again. “Sacmis...”

  “Are you hallucinating, fe?” Kalaes leaned over, placed a hand on Elei’s forehead. It felt heavenly cool. “You’re running a fever, dammit.”

  Elei blinked. “What has this to do with—”

  “It’s telmion,” Hera said. “Rex is probably fighting it as we speak. I’ll need to prepare more tea.”

  “That vile stuff?” Kalaes gave Elei another long look.

  “You need to find your people,” he insisted, “and Hera needs to find—”

  “I’m going with you, fe.” Kalaes thumped both fists on the table, scaring the hell out of Elei. The cups jumped and rattled.

  “Why?”

  Kalaes’ eyes were serious. “Because, if there’s any chance of taking down the Gultur, I’m in. I’ve got a personal debt to settle.”

  Hera grinned. “It’s decided then. We’re going with you, Elei. All three of us.”

  Alendra, too? Elei gaped. “But—”

  “Although the getting in part seems doubtful, it looks like this chick here,” Kalaes winked at Hera, “has some nifty trick up her sleeve, eh, Hera?”

  “Trick?” Hera glared. “It is no trick. It’s knowledge.”

  “Oh? Then fill us in, wise one.” Kalaes leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “We’re all ears.”

  “The sewers.” Hera’s lips stretched into a smug smile. “Sure and tried way into any city.”

  “Sewers?” Elei frowned. “We fit inside?”

  “I should’ve seen this coming.” Kalaes groaned. “Stinky, slimy tunnels, crawling with roaches and rats. Pure joy.”

  Even as Elei wondered when Kalaes had been inside the sewers before, he was too shocked to think past the fact that Kalaes, Hera and Alendra were joining him on a mission into Dakru City, the Gultur lair, based on something he’d remembered in a dream.

  Madness.

  ***

  Madness. Hera relaxed slightly. That was familiar territory — going after an elusive clue when nothing else seemed to work. She did not dare contact the Undercurrent for help, not for this. They’d tell her no, that going after a dream was stupid. But what did they know?

  If she’d stopped looking for Elei after the shooting that killed Pelia, the regime would not have been destabilized and any chance at bringing down the government would have been lost.

  Then again... Project Siren. Hera took a deep breath. She’d found references to it when she started to investigate the origins of the Seven Islands, prompted by her dreams. The name had popped up in several files, but nobody
ever explained what the project was supposed to investigate.

  She kept seeing the mermaid carved under the word ‘Below’ on the back of the medallion. A coincidence? She had never met Pelia in person, only by phone and through others, but she felt Pelia would not leave anything to coincidence when it came to the medallion and the clues she’d left behind.

  But what did she mean? What was the connection? Hera had looked in every archive she’d had access to, trying to find out more about the project. Iliathan, her mortal contact, had confirmed it was connected to the origin of the world.

  But it was practically impossible to uncover anything, apart from what Iliathan had provided. Yet, in this top secret project led by the Gultur, Hera had found a mention of Pelia’s name.

  Another coincidence?

  Focus, hatha. She should not be thinking of the Project Siren, she should be concentrating on entering Dakru City, on recalling the route through the sewers and which exit to take, where to find the chamber for washing up and changing clothes. If only nothing had changed. If nobody had followed them.

  If she did not fail in her task.

  She would not. Not this time.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The rest of the day went by in a blur. Kalaes insisted on dragging Elei to bed and his head pounded so hard he’d gone along. Besides, he was still shocked that Pelia’s words from his dream could be true, and just as much that Kalaes and Hera wanted to accompany him.

  Alendra’s voice rang from the kitchen, angry and loud at first, protesting, then low and grumbling. She wasn’t happy about going. Elei couldn’t blame her. He’d have to talk to Kalaes about this. Why not leave her here? Or send her to wherever she wanted to go?

  One thing was clear in his mind. He couldn’t let anyone accompany him. He had to keep the others safe.

  He only hoped Pelia had some important information in that safety box. Information important enough to risk his life for it. Something that could really bring the Gultur down.

  His Rasmus lay next to his pillow. He’d put it there, needing it close. Stupid need. Somehow it felt like his only link to reality. But reality kept finding its way into his dreams. Pelia. Hecate. A goddess. A box and a medallion, a gun and a number. His birthday. The pier. The sea.