Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  As the night wore on, they drained cup after cup, reliving old memories he’d thought forgotten. The tree fort they’d built in the woods surrounding Vrinkarn using old blankets taken without their mothers’ knowledge, the plans they made to surpass their fathers in name and deed. They were silly, childish memories, but they were his, nonetheless, and he found himself reeling dizzily with longing for much simpler complications than the ones he faced as a man.

  “You were my brother,” he slurred, tipping his cup to clash with Logren’s. The cold ale splashed out onto their hands, and he watched, laughing when the other man lifted his gloved hand to lick specks of alcohol from the leather to avoid wasting it.

  “We were going to conquer the world together!” Logren roared, tossing back the last few swallows in his cup before moving to fill it again. “Now you’re a traitor and I’m in exile.”

  “I am no traitor.” Vilnjar snorted laughter. “And we are all in exile now, old friend.”

  Logren wavered beside him, becoming sullen and moody as he stared into the fire. “Not for long, old friend. In my father’s name, I will take back all he lost, and paint the world red with the blood of those who dared stand in his way.”

  “Have you learned nothing from the failure of our fathers?”

  Logren’s eyes widened in challenge at first, a swift madness lighting his spirit as he turned his head to leer at Viln beside him, the malice in his grin yielding to amusement. “Our fathers were heroes, or have you forgotten that while sitting on your council dictating rules that were never meant to be followed by our kind.”

  “Heroes?” he nodded thoughtfully, that one word caught in his throat. He narrowed his eyes in the direction of the fire, staring long at the brilliant orange coals near its heart. “They may have been heroes, as you say. They died with honor for all of us, and I suppose that does make them heroes, but it did not have to be that way.”

  “Bah,” the other man growled. “My father would not have surrendered if there had been another way. Everything is as it should be, as it has always been. Their sacrifice has only paved the way for us, and we will triumph where our fathers failed. It has been seen.”

  “Seen.” He threw his head back slowly, the endless stars in the sky above him spinning as he stared. “Your aunt saw things too, but I have never put much stock in the wisdom of seers.”

  “Their wisdom guided our fathers…”

  “Their wisdom got our fathers killed. You’d do well to remember that, old friend.”

  “Our fathers died so that we might embrace the fire of their loss and rain down upon our foes with lust for vengeance. The Light has come, and she will shine upon us all and wake our sleeping wolf spirits so that we might rise against our enemies and take back what is rightfully ours.”

  “If you think you’re going to convince that little girl in there to stand against the only man she’s ever known as her father to avenge the stranger who’s seed sprouted in her mother’s womb, you are crazier than Rognar ever was.”

  “And you are nothing like your father at all,” he hissed. “Deken’s spirit no doubt cringes from the endless hunt in Lohaloth.”

  “I’m sure it does,” he mused. “But as he is dead and I am not, I cannot see myself charging forward screaming for vengeance against a father who would no doubt cringe with scorn if he could see the man I’ve become.”

  “I imagine he would have been proud to call Finn his son.”

  “I imagine you are right.” He swallowed hard, the sour ale churning in his stomach like acid.

  “What happened to you, Vilnjar? What made you soft like clay, molded to the will of the very council who killed the man who brought you into this world?”

  “I am not soft,” though the quiet murmur of his voice said otherwise. “I have had to make many hard choices, many sacrifices…”

  “Sacrifices,” Logren scoffed derisive laughter. “What have you given up, Vilnjar? Your nice warm bed in Drekne? Command of your wolf? They killed our fathers, that council you serve…”

  “King Aelfric killed our fathers.”

  “Because the Council of the Nine betrayed them! They allowed themselves to be caged like beasts, walled into a small strip of land and cut off from the rest of the world. They denied you the one thing that matters: your wolf, and you just accepted that.”

  “I was a boy, Logren!” The rising of his own angry voice surprised him. Somewhere in the quiet camp he heard several bodies stir, but no rose from sleep. “I had no choice in the decisions the council made back then. There was no magical silver hand of moonlight that reached into our lives and drew us all away to safety.” Stumbling over his own words, he wasn’t able to stop the ones that next escaped him until it was too late. “Do you even realize how absurd that sounds? How preposterous and arrogant… If there was a light, as you say, some gods’ intervention that spared you and your people, why did it stop with you? Why didn’t it save our fathers?”

  “Do you think I don’t ask myself that same question every gods damned day, Vilnjar?” Logren hissed. “Why me? Why Hodon? Why not Rognar? It took me all my life to understand why not Rognar. Our fathers were proud men. Men willing to die for what they believed in, and they did not believe in kneeling before a tyrant king who would cage their spirits and dictate their freedoms. Don’t you see, Vilnjar? It has nothing to do with revenge. It’s about standing up for what our fathers believed in, about reclaiming the right to be who we are. When my wolf spirit wakes, there is no man in Vennakrand who will ever tell me I must cage it!”

  “If you think…” Viln didn’t even have time to finish that thought, and just as quickly forgot it.

  “I remember your father. Deken was a proud man, a man willing to die not for my father, but for the right to live as the U’lfer were meant to live.” It took him several tries to actually rise from where he sat. He stumbled and rolled until he finally got to his feet, but it didn’t lessen the impact of his next words. “Deken weeps from the Great Hunt in disappointment.”

  Lowering his head, a twinge of shame burned through him, poking at the beast beneath his skin. A real U’lfer would have answered such an insult with an enraged challenge, rising in a huff to throw back any who dared insult his father or his manhood. Finn would have answered that challenge and made his father proud, but he was not his brother, and Logren was already staggering away from the fireside. The beast beneath his skin felt only the slightest twinge of insult.

  It was true. He was a failure by his father’s standards, not even half the son Finn was by comparison. Finn feared nothing, allowed nothing to stand in the way of being who he was, and Vilnjar tried to stamp that out of him his entire life to keep him alive, but what kind of life were they living if it wasn’t one worth fighting for. Much of the last ten years he’d actually been proud of the fact that he was nothing like his father, but for the first time in his life he questioned his own pride and it terrified him.

  Vilnjar sat alone near the fire, finishing what remained in the bottle Logren left behind and wallowing in his own confusion and lack of self-worth. At some point he passed out and woke shivering in his own cloak when someone kicked the bottom of his boot and informed him they were packing up camp. He bolted upright with a start, every muscle in his body aching from the cold and the awkward position he’d passed out in. His head throbbed from too much drink.

  It took him several minutes, wavering where he sat and rolling his dry tongue across his numb teeth, to remember where he was and how he’d gotten there. There was a dull, pulsing ache inside his head, the acids in his stomach churned sourly when he tried to stand and a dizzying wave moved through him. A groan gurgled through his raw throat, the nasty taste in his mouth nearly gagging him if he dwelt on it too long.

  It was barely even dawn, the golden rosy hue of the rising sun on the horizon too much for his sensitive eyes to appreciate. Lifting a gloved hand into his tangled hair, that hand lingered on his pulsing forehead for several seconds as he surveyed the bu
sy camp. His gaze found Logren staggering out of his tent looking almost as bad as Vilnjar felt. A pained scowl tightened the man’s lips and the mussed waves of his thick red hair stuck straight up like a nest of angry snakes even after he’d lowered the hand he’d just run through them.

  The mage was standing in front of him with his arms crossed, the hood of his black robes drawn around his face as he spoke quietly to his commander. Logren drew back, an embittered scowl marring his already angry face, but the half-elf met his anger with equal animosity. There was a haughty air about him, as Viln overheard him remind Logren of the promise he’d made the night before.

  The last thing Brendolowyn said to him before Logren shoved past him was clear enough to ring through the camp. “It’s your mess. You clean it up.”

  “So leave me to my mess then.”

  The mage stepped out of his way and held up his hands in retreat, but his eyes followed after Logren even when Vilnjar approached. The Bone-Breaker looked a mad man stalking through the sea of parting bodies, muttering words no one else could hear.

  Viln cleared his throat, but Bren barely looked at him, even when he spoke. “You wouldn’t happen to have any idea where my brother got off to last night, would you?”

  “That almost seems a foolish question.” There was bitterness in his tone, his long eyes narrowed as his face tightened, bringing out the chiseled elven quality of his features he otherwise seemed to hide so well. Were it not for the stubble shadowing his chin and cheeks, Viln might have forgotten there was U’lfer blood in his veins for a moment. “Wherever she is, you will find him.”

  Even through the haze of his own hangover, his response sounded so much like Finn’s jealous behavior from the day before it caught him momentarily off guard. Vilnjar actually took a step back to get a better look at the man in front of him, wondering for a moment if Finn really did have something worry about. Not that it should have been any of his business, but the protective inclination he felt when it came to his brother flashed to the surface and his tongue lashed before he even thought about the words that followed.

  “They say it’s like that when you’re mated,” he sneered, taking a moment of near-childish joy in the other man’s startled expression. “Wherever one is, the other is sure to be found.”

  His overconfidence was gone, just like that. Every ounce of his elven grace disappeared behind a stoic wall. His face completely lacked emotion until a sardonic half-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Then I guess you don’t need me to find him.”

  Brendolowyn nudged into him when he walked away, staggering him just enough to remind him of how weak he felt. Every nerve throbbed with the kind of pain only hard work and several buckets of water would sweat from his system. His mind lapsed back on the last promise he’d made to himself to never overindulge in drink again and wondered how likely he’d be to keep such a promise to himself if he made it again. Lifting a hand to his temple, his fingers slipped through the loose locks of his dark hair as he sighed and scanned the crowd of bodies tearing down camp.

  Lorelei burst from a small tent several feet away, Logren following after her and grabbing onto the cloak she was tying together to stop her from getting too far ahead of him. “If you’ll just listen to me…”

  She spun on him with a righteous fury in her eyes that actually sent her much bigger brother stumbling back a few steps into Finn, who was climbing out of the tent. His large hands shot up to steady the man, and then he ducked around him to leave them to their argument. Lorelei stared after him almost helplessly, but he only offered a sympathetic shrug before meandering toward Vilnjar.

  “I didn’t expect to find you up and around so early,” Finn commented, the abrasive sound of his voice making Vilnjar’s head throb. “The two of you could be heard out here long into the night, arguing like an old married couple about cages and duties and fathers and sons.”

  “I didn’t exactly have much choice in the matter. We are heading out.”

  “What time did the two of you finally kiss and make up?”

  “We didn’t,” he grumbled, lowering his hand to his side and watching the quiet argument between brother and sister unfurl several feet away. “He seems convinced that once she learns her true destiny, she’ll march to whatever tune their seer has written for her and save them all somehow, even if it means marching on the man who raised her.”

  Finn snorted a nasally laugh of disagreement. “Blood kin or not, he has a lot to learn about the princess, it would seem.”

  “Indeed, he does. And what about you?” he turned his attention to his brother. “How well did you get to know the princess last night?”

  Finn had never been one to hide his exploits, especially when it came to the fairer sex. The morning after a particularly exciting conquest he often took great pride entertaining anyone who would listen. Viln watched the curve of his brow furrow, his eyes narrowing before he very uncharacteristically stated, “I don’t think that’s anybody’s business but mine and hers.”

  “So, she hasn’t come around yet?”

  “She will,” he scowled, returning his attention to the arguing siblings. Logren seemed to have found a bit of his courage, leaning in to reason with her in total disregard to her personal space and obvious scorn. “What do you think would happen to her if she hit him?”

  “The way everyone around here seems to regard her? Probably nothing.” Following his brother’s stare, she didn’t back down, even with Logren so close. She pushed up onto the tips of her toes until they were almost eye-level with each other and said something to him through clenched teeth that actually caused the man to take a step back again. Whatever she’d said, it had hurt him, softened everything about him that seemed over confident and strong until he hung his head like a scolded child and reached out to touch her shoulder with a gentle, apologetic hand.

  Funny, Viln thought, the way she had with people. It really did seem like she somehow altered everyone she touched, turning them to her point of view with little more than a word at times. Turning to watch his brother watching her, Finn was a prime example of the power she had over the people around her.

  “We should help tear down camp,” Viln urged.

  Finn didn’t have to be told twice. He threw himself into the first job that came his way, keeping a watchful eye on his princess and the cooling conversation she was having with her brother, but Vilnjar was less than enthusiastic about packing up camp. He’d never been so tired and hungover in his life, and not even the cold was enough to push him into action. He offered his assistance nonetheless, moving slow and assuring himself that the next time someone offered him a second cup of wine the words no thank you would shortly follow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The road ahead of them seemed never ending—a long, vast white wasteland only occasionally blurred by swirling silver drifts of snow that glistened in the sun’s light. The sun should have been a blessing, a bit of warmth to drive the chill from their bones, but Finn felt no evidence of its distant heat. Only the frigid wind fluttering through his skin-tight clothes and nibbling at his exposed skin. At least Logren had finally consented to allowing him and his brother to walk without silver, thanks in part to his heroics with the troll that infiltrated their camp the night before.

  Lorelei seemed to have forgiven her brother before departing from camp, at least enough to continue on the journey to Dunvarak, but she avoided both Logren and the mage much of the morning. Sticking close to Finn as they traveled, he was grateful for her nearness. Her presence made him forget at times just how tight and uncomfortable those borrowed clothes were and he barely even felt them chafing against his skin in all the wrong places.

  She was quiet though, introspective as she watched her booted feet scuff through the powdery snow beneath them. He wondered what was on her mind, but a part of him felt like he didn’t dare ask to be let into her sullen thoughts. He sensed that she already let him in much deeper than she wanted to, and while he was grateful for
those brief glimpses into the heart and soul of the woman he desperately hoped to one day call his mate, he was learning to temper his impatience. He could almost hear his mother’s voice murmuring in the back of his mind that good things came to those who waited. For Lorelei, he’d wait forever.

  Through the long, cold night he’d lain awake beside her, her body curled close to his, though they were separated by a mountain of furs she’d put between them. In the dark he’d listened to her heart, to the sound of her breath as it matched the rhythm of his own. He could only just see her in the dim light of the fire closest to the tent they shared, and he’d spent every minute of that restless night memorizing each line and curve of her delicate face until he could close his eyes and still see her. He never wanted a day to come when he might need to close his eyes to see her, but he had no idea where they were going, or what awaited them when they got there. If he was somehow separated from her…

  The mere thought terrified him, but he did not have to dwell on it long because she broke the silence with a soft-spoken introspection that made his blood feel cold in his veins.

  “Brendolowyn said something to me last night that I can’t stop thinking about it.” She spoke quietly, as if she only wanted him to hear and he slowed down their pace a little to put some space between them and the soldiers marching in front of them.

  He’d never admit it, but those words made him nervous. The mage hadn’t said as much in their brief time together while he’d been raising the barrier around camp, but he obviously had his eye on Lorelei. Worse was that he and everyone else in their unit seemed to feel the connection with her Logren had mentioned the night before, like they knew her in ways Finn himself might never know. How could he ever compete with that?

  He noticed her spirits did seem a little lighter when she was talking to the mage, but he supposed he only had himself and his bigoted mouth the blame for that. He should have taken comfort from the fact that she’d at least allowed him to sleep in her tent, but until she could look him in the eye and clearly see what dwelt in his heart he couldn’t afford to take any chances on her getting close to someone else.