She had an incredible hold on his brother. Finn seemed ready and willing to follow her into the very depths of the abyss without question. That made her dangerous—just like her father.
“Choose where you will stand,” Rhiorna said the night Finn brought the stranger into their sanctuary, unconscious and bleeding, a pale slip of a girl with a life force that burned so low he could barely see her aura.
Side with the council and cast her out, or walk beside her on the long, hard road to freedom.
Discontent and confusion rippled through him, but he had to push those thoughts aside. Whatever Rhiorna was up to, she’d involved his impetuous young fool of a brother, manipulating his mind and his emotions. That could not go unanswered.
“You have come with questions, no doubt.” The sound of Rhiorna’s voice jostled him from deep thought.
For a moment he’d almost forgotten where he was, what he’d come for. Shaking the cobwebs from his thoughts, he cleared his throat and asked, “What is wrong with the girl?”
“Wrong with her?” The relaxation didn’t abate from her features, and eyes still closed she spoke to him in a dreamy voice. “There’s nothing the matter with her.”
“She says her heart doesn’t beat the way it should, that it doesn’t answer to her body anymore, but some force outside of her. Is this your magic at work? Part of your deception?”
“Deception?” She quirked a sharp, red eyebrow at him, but her mouth did not give way to expression. “Her heart is not her own anymore, or rather it has never fully belonged to her. It has belonged to another since the day she was born, and is only now awakening to that wisdom. She hasn’t seen the connection yet, and it’s not for anyone else to show it to her, but once she realizes the truth she won’t feel so strange and disconnected.”
“Connection? What connection?”
“Oh, come now, Vilnjar.” Rhiorna finally opened her eyes and lifted her sharp, shimmering golden gaze toward him. “I know you’ve had your nose so far up the council’s backside it’s been hard for you to remember the old ways, but you do remember them. You remember your mother and father, the connection they shared in life and now in death.”
He took offense to that, lifting his arms almost defiantly over his chest and steadying his silent temper with a deep breath. He had grown up with the council, hadn’t even come close to his first transformation before they tightened their grip on what was left of the U’lfer, and though he didn’t always agree with what they had to say, he believed they were necessary to the survival of his people. The council intervened when the U’lfer were too drunk with power to maintain their own existence; the council saved them from going the way of the Dvergr, the Drakiiri, the Aqatiiri and the Seraphii.
“Do you really believe that hogwash?” She was in his thoughts again; he could feel her poking through them like a child with a stick. “The council didn’t preserve anyone or anything but themselves, spouting lies to our people, manipulating our very nature and at what cost? I’ve sat idly by these last ten years, watching through the eyes of our god as that wretched establishment destroyed everything our people stood for. And you can throw on as many self-righteous airs as you like, young man, but I know there is something inside you that longs for the old ways. The beast inside us all longs for the hunt, and it can only be denied for so long before the madness takes over.”
In that she was right. Something inside every one of them longed for the old ways, for the freedom to rise beneath the moons and join the hunt, but with that freedom came violence and a thirst for power that couldn’t be denied. The old ways had nearly killed them all.
“You’re wrong,” he lied, more for his own sake than hers. “And I don’t like the way you’re manipulating my brother. Finn is easily influenced, and…”
“And headstrong, just like Deken,” she grinned over at him. “But I’ve done nothing to manipulate Finn. It is his own heart that guides him, the wolf inside him calling to be free. You could learn a valuable lesson from Finn.”
A scoff of disbelieving laughter was all he could muster in reply.
“You asked me what was wrong with the girl’s heart, so consider this, Vilnjar. Every time you think about your mother, about the stories she told of your father, about how hard it was for you to watch her spirit fade from this world as she struggled to survive for the sake of their children, but you know as well I do that Eornlaith barely clung to life in those final years before she died, half of her in this world, the other clinging desperately to the notion that she would see Deken again in the afterlife.”
Every drop of his blood felt as if it froze in his veins when her very essence changed. The wild tendrils of her bright red hair became soft and straight and black, the freckles washed from her pale skin leaving behind a milk-white face so familiar he swore he couldn’t breathe. The eyes staring back at him were dark blue and rimmed in tears that slipped down her cheeks like tiny, iridescent pearls when she blinked.
“I am dying, my son. My heart.” She lifted a hand to her chest, slack fingers lingering over the emptiness that drummed with only half its strength inside her. “It does not beat the way it used to and it can only beat alone for so long now that he is gone. My Deken, my soul.”
His eyes burned and watered. The trembling hands at his sides rose to touch her face, a face he would have given anything to see again, but it was wrong. The thing standing in front of him wasn’t his mother, no matter how much he wanted to believe it. Recoiling his hand, he looked away.
“Stop this. I will not be influenced by your sorcery.”
Her face shifted again, the wild red hair spiraling around her face as the features altered and resumed their natural state, though he was certain in that moment there was nothing natural about Rhiorna. All those years she’d spent blind and mute; every minute of it had been some kind of farce, but to what end? What was she planning?
“I am not planning anything. I only bring his wisdom to our people, wisdom they have all forgotten in these dark times.”
“Stay out of my thoughts,” he hissed, bringing his fingers up and running them through the dark brown locks of his chin-length hair. They tumbled back into place, framing his cheeks and tickling the edge of his jaw as they settled. “You have no business inside my head.”
“If you don’t wish to have people traipsing around through your thoughts, perhaps you should try a little harder to keep from broadcasting them,” she suggested. “That being said, you’re missing my point, Vilnjar. Your mother couldn’t live with the loneliness of her heart beating without Deken’s.”
“Of course she couldn’t. My mother and father were mated…”
That last word died on his tongue, a cold trickle of dread slipping down the length of his spine when the woman in front of him grinned.
“You… you can’t be serious. It isn’t like that anymore. That isn’t the way things are done.”
“That isn’t the way things are done because our numbers are so painfully depleted. Many of your generation is cursed to wander through this life feeling hopelessly alone because your mates were killed when you were all just children, or they were never even born. There have been so few new children because of this, and it is only a matter of time before we are no more. The council made laws to suppress the nature of our species, but they cannot change the laws of nature, Vilnjar. Finn found her in the forest because his heart led him to her. She is his mate, and it was only a matter of time and circumstance before they found one another.”
“That’s not possible. She isn’t even one of us.”
“You’re wrong. She is as much a part of who we are as you or I. Our people are dying, Vilnjar. I know it, you know and the council knows it. We were never meant to live like this, caged within invisible boundaries, forced to farm, denied the hunt, our very spirits repressed by the will of the humans, who would just as soon see us all dead. Lorelei is the living spirit of the U’lfer, everything we stand for and though you may not see it yet, I promise you
that one day she will lead all that remains of our people to freedom and you will follow her without question.”
“The way my father followed hers?” The snort of laughter that followed that question held no amusement. “I don’t think so.”
“It is Llorveth’s will, Vilnjar. Would you dare to turn a blind eye to the will of our god?”
“Is it Llorveth’s will, or is it yours, Rhiorna?”
“Llorveth’s will is my will. It has always been so, will always be. I am his eyes, his ears, his voice, and right now he is telling me that you must choose.”
“You’ve already given me that divine message.”
“But you still haven’t made your choice.”
“And this is where prophecy and the voice of a god become a little muddled and unbelievable for me. You promised me just seconds ago that one day she would lead us to freedom and I would follow her without question, but now you say I still haven’t made my choice. Which is it, Rhiorna? What do you really see? Nothing, I think.”
Rhiorna laughed, a cold cackle as her eyes widened with pleasure. “Oh, I have already seen it, Vilnjar. I only want to hear you say it. Say that you will stand beside the savior of our race while the others fall beneath her wrath when she rises to do the bidding of the gods.”
“No.” Shaking his head, he took a step back from her and turned toward the door. “I will not stand idly by and let you destroy all that is left of us. Cobin will hear of this, and put a stop to what you’re planning.”
“There is nothing left of us to destroy, Vilnjar. The U’lfer are already as good as dead, but the wolf will rise again. She will find those who remain true and lead us all to salvation. Just you wait. They will cast her out this night, your brother too and nothing you say to them will ever change their minds. Remember that when you are plotting against your own god, and know that he will forgive you when you finally see the light.”
She was still laughing when he left her, the unsettling sound of certain madness following him through the corridor as he stalked into the kitchens to find food for the so-called savior of their race.
Savior. A little princess from Leithe who didn’t even know what lived beneath her skin. He didn’t think so. Whatever she was, she wasn’t U’lfer; she was not his brother’s mate. Convincing Finn of that would probably be the hardest thing he ever had to do because he’d already accepted it as fact. It had only been a few days and already he was so attached to her, he refused to leave her for even a second. He hadn’t left her side except to empty his bowels and bladder, and whenever Viln went to check on them he’d found Finn sitting transfixed at her bedside, as if some foul magic culled his senses.
Rhiorna. Somehow Rhiorna had manipulated his brother, and when it came time for Finn to stand before the council in judgment, Vilnjar would tell them everything he knew. He’d been played like a puppet, and there was a strong possibility Rhiorna had been doing it all along. Planting little seeds of discord in his mind, pushing him away from the ideals the council fought so hard to put into place after the treaty was signed.
Maybe with enough convincing they would agree to spare him, send Lorelei back to her people and let Finn stay. The only problem with that would be figuring out a way to show Finn he’d been toyed with, that the feelings he thought he had for the girl weren’t real.
Convincing Finn of anything he didn’t want to believe was a near impossible task, but he’d made a promise to their mother. For her sake he at least had to try and break the spell.
CHAPTER NINE
“Why is it so quiet here?”
Lorelei paused near the fountain and lowered her hand into the rippling pool of water beneath the statue of Llorveth in the center. It was an odd rendition of the god, the horns broken free and trails of water streaming from the place they used to rest atop the stag’s brow. Tracing her fingers along the constant spirals of water reverberating to the stone edge and back, she withdrew her hand and watched the droplets drip from her fingertip.
She’d asked him to take her outside so she could get some air after Vilnjar left them alone, and he’d led her into the garden beyond the temple more than an hour earlier. In that hour they said very little while she walked around inspecting the flowers and marveling the wonders of that peaceful place, but she didn’t need to say words for him to feel content in her company. Just being near Lorelei calmed the part of Finn that always wanted to rage. Funny, that. All his life that part of him lingered just beneath the surface, urged him in raspy, growling whispers to let it out, but since he’d first touched her the voice his brother called madness felt almost as if it were at peace.
“I don’t know.” Finn shrugged and turned to lean against the fountain. He could feel the water spray against his back, seeping through the spun fabric of his shirt and breeches until his skin was damp beneath them. “It just is, I guess.”
“The temple in Rivenn is never empty,” she said absently. “Not that I’ve actually spent time there. We always celebrate and give praise to Foreln and the Ladies in the palace, and the priest gives weekly services in the chapel there, but I can see the city temple from the tower gardens. There’s always someone going in or coming out.”
She scolded him twice more for calling her Princess after Vilnjar left, but he couldn’t shake the nickname, especially when she said things like that. She moved with elegance and grace, every step carefully plotted before she took it, every gesture slow and thoughtful, as though she’d spent her whole life learning how to carry herself among important people. It made him feel inferior, intimidated and just a little bit small, but he was determined to overcome it.
“Where are all the people?”
“Around, I suppose. The council is probably preparing for the judgment, so people will stay away from this part of the village until the bells summon them to the great hall to watch.”
“You mean they’ll all be there to watch?”
“You say that like there will be thousands of them ready to come pouring through the doors to fill the hall, but there really aren’t that many of us,” he chuckled. “Two hundred or so here in Drekne, maybe another hundred in Breken and a few souls scattered between villages, but everyone in Drekne will come, for sure. Men, women, the few remaining children. Nothing gets the people more riled up than the promise of a good exiling.”
“Do they exile people very often?”
“Never,” Finn snorted. “They haven’t exiled anyone since the War of Silence ended. Mostly it’s a threat they use to keep the rowdy troublemakers like me in line, but I think they’re really going to do it this time.”
“Are you really such a menace?”
“Princess, you have no idea.”
“And the War of Silence? What is that?”
“Your father’s war.”
Those words disheartened her; he could feel the instant drop in her already low emotions and it pained him so much that he inwardly cringed with guilt.
She would be judged solely on the crimes of a man she’d never even met simply because he’d contributed to the spark of her life. It wasn’t fair, and he wanted so much to comfort her, but he could sense that touching her would only frighten her more.
Comfort her, Rhiorna said. Make her feel safe.
There were walls around her, heavily guarded and fortified all the way down to their very foundation and surrounded by a moat of her own tears. Breaking through that wall to reach her felt impossible, but all his life he’d gone out of his way to make the impossible possible.
Turning his head downward over his left shoulder, he watched her curl her fingers around the marble lip of the fountain pool and lean forward much the same way Rhiorna had done when he’d been in the garden with her. Her wide eyes staring down at the rippling water caught for a moment in the fading sunlight, shimmering like precious golden amber stones just beyond pale brown lashes. Beautiful. In all his life he’d never seen anything so glorious.
Her skin was so pale, a light smattering of freckles dustin
g her cheeks and dotting the bridge of her nose. The long waves of her dark red hair hung slack against her cheek, making the paleness of her skin seem that much whiter. He wanted to touch that hair, let its softness roll through his fingers as he knelt to hold her near and lowered his face to rest atop her head. He wanted to, but he wouldn’t. A part of her felt safe and comfortable with him, he could feel it pulsing through every beat of her heart, but he also felt her fear and confusion. She didn’t understand why she felt the way she did around him and he couldn’t tell her.
Rhiorna told him to listen to his heart, and his heart was telling him not to disrupt the natural order of things by telling her something that would probably only terrify her more. One day she would trust him, but until that day arrived he would just have to be patient.
Patience had never been one of his strong suits.
“We should head back inside.” He glanced toward the closed doors leading into the temple. “Get you something to eat before we’re summoned. Vilnjar’s probably bursting a vein looking for us.”
“I’m not hungry anymore,” she confessed. “I just… I want to stand out here and feel the warmth of the sun on my face a little while longer.”
“As you wish.”
A little while longer turned into twenty minutes, thirty minutes, another hour, and in that time they made only small talk. She walked circles around the garden and admired the flowers, reached out with gentle hands to stroke the silken petals between her fingertips. Her face grew peaceful, her heart calm and her gaze thoughtful, and Finn wished they could stay that way forever.
Edgelanders (Serpent of Time) Page 12