“What did he say?”
“He asked me if after everything that’s happened, after all I’ve learned about Aelfric, I can still call Rivenn home.” She didn’t look at him when she spoke, but past him, squinting into the endless, blinding white landscape. “And I have thought about it, a lot over the last few days, actually, but I don’t think it really sunk in for me until I woke up this morning that I have no home.”
And that was what they had in common between them, he realized. Together, they were without a place to call their home, and that made him very sad. Of all the common threads to share, why did the most prevalent one have to be the most depressing?
There were thousands of clever and reassuring things he could have said to her; they rolled through his mind in a tangle of thought, but all he managed to do was drop his hand on her shoulder and squeeze.
She was his home; where she went, he would follow until he could follow her no more, but until the feeling was mutual she would never understand him if he said it to her.
As morning wore on into afternoon, they stopped only briefly to rest and eat. Fierce wind battered relentlessly at the travelers. Finn began to fret that the feeling would never return to the exposed skin of his face and wrists and his joints ached from the dry cold. At least when they were moving he didn’t notice it as much, but sitting still too long was agony. The few times he teasingly asked Lorelei if she wanted to ride on his back, he dreaded that she might actually take him up on his offer. She was light enough, but in that bitter cold even her lithe form would feel like a giant on his back.
After their short break they returned to the road until the sun began to dip below the horizon. They made camp, and that night he slept in Lorelei’s tent again while their brothers argued drunkenly in front of the fire about things he’d never understand. He didn’t want to, didn’t care. All that mattered was the curves of her body curled close to his, her warmth filling him with contentment unlike any he’d ever known before.
The following morning began with a promise from Logren that they would see Dunvarak just after sunset that night if they all agreed to travel through without stopping to rest. They could eat as they walked, and a grand feast would be waiting for them in the warm halls of the keep when they arrived. That promise seemed to be enough to keep everyone going through the endless morning and impossibly long afternoon. He wondered what kind of place Dunvarak was, imagined it was bitter and cold and made of ice. He tried to imagine what kind of life Logren’s people could have possibly eked out there, but it was impossible to see beyond what he’d known all his life in the Edgelands.
A great wooden hall, warm hearths in every small cottage, their homes forming a circle around the central hall and temple that expanded outward toward the trees. The people in Dunvarak shared his ancestors, and he hoped against all hope there was familiarity in the structure of their village that made it feel like home, but he couldn’t imagine it no matter how much he tried. How could such a place exist so far away from the warm, green lands on the edge of Leithe? And would he even be free in Dunvarak? Vilnjar, in his ever-present caution warned him that they might be walking into their own doom in Logren’s city, for there was no telling what awaited them there.
Not that he was afraid. He was just… homesick.
He never thought he’d say that. The part of him underneath all that bravado and defiance longing for warm autumns and mild winters that saw only a few inches of snow through the months leading into rich, green spring. So often in the days leading up to their exile he’d tried to convince himself and anyone who would listen that he didn’t care about where he was going, but now he missed the place he’d called home all his life.
Glancing over at Lorelei, he knew she felt the same and he wondered quietly how they would find the comfort of home if they could never go back. She staggered through the snow beside him, and Vilnjar trekked several paces behind them, occasionally muttering inaudibly to himself about freezing to death beneath the scarves he’d wrapped around his face to keep the wind out. Generally, he ran on the hot-blooded side, but not even the fire of his spirit seemed able to keep him warm. He wondered how the half-breeds kept it up without complaining. They remained vigilant and stern, hardened against the wind’s sharp edge.
Finn had to stop himself mid-thought. He needed something else to call them if he wanted to avoid Lorelei’s cold shoulder, but there wasn’t a word in his vocabulary for the bastard sons and daughters of the U’lfer. Dunvarakians, he thought with a smug nod. It was a mouthful, but it would keep him out of trouble.
“I can’t feel my feet,” Lorelei complained, leaning into him as she walked in order to keep herself up. Her shoulder nudged into the fur cloaking that padded his arm, but he could barely feel the heat of her body even with her so close to him.
“How are you liking your exile now, little brother?” Viln stumbled in closer to his back.
“Best time of my life!” Even if he was completely miserable, he would never let his brother hear him say it.
“Rest assured it will only get worse.”
“Why are you always trying to spoil everything, Viln? If you didn’t want an adventure, you should have stayed home.”
“Someone has to teach you to be realistic. Whatever awaits us up there,” he gestured over Lorelei’s head, “I can promise you it will not be a hearty welcome and a warm meal for us.”
“You don’t know that,” Lorelei pointed out, but even she didn’t sound convinced.
Finn followed the gloved curve of his brother’s finger toward the radiating silver light of Dunvarak in the distance. It was still miles away, but visibly rising above the vast, white landscape like a beautiful beacon of warmth and light.
He didn’t know what to expect, his mind picturing a small, frozen hamlet consisting of a few ramshackle buildings dripping with icicles, maybe a handful of starving goats staggering through the snow, and a few frozen, blue-lipped children with chattering teeth in rags, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. Rising from the vast, sturdy walls was the tallest tower Finn had ever seen. Catching the last rays of the sun before it dipped below the horizon, the whole tower glowed almost unnaturally. Even after the sun disappeared as they pushed onward, that silver glow lingered, lighting up the city.
The high walls around the city stretched for miles in both directions, with only a few of the buildings actually rising above the top of the wall to give the travelers an idea of waited beyond them. There certainly seemed to be far more to Dunvarak than ramshackle houses and a few stray goats roaming around. Even from a distance he could feel the warmth radiating off the city, the air temperature shifting until the snow beneath his boots felt slushy and wet, as though it were melting in its proximity to so much warmth.
The soldiers tromped through it as if they’d walked that slippery road a thousand times, but Lorelei was so transfixed on the closeness of their destination she kept slipping into him. Not that he minded, but his own fixation with the rising city up ahead had them practically falling all over each other.
“I didn’t expect it to be so big,” Lorelei muttered to him. “A city that size, how could such a thing exist down here without anyone knowing about it?”
“We have several mages in our ranks who work night and day to keep us off the maps and out of the general consciousness of the world,” Logren informed her as he wove through the last few bodies between them to reach her. His hand jerked forward to catch her arm when she slid through the snow again, and he laughed heartily as he yanked her back to her feet and held her upright.
She was still uncomfortable with the man, and with good reason after the story he’d told two nights before, but her eyes didn’t seem as cold when she lifted them toward him. She righted herself with an embarrassed huff, her face glowing a soft shade of pink as she let go of him, determined to walk on her own.
“I’ve already sent word ahead to announce your coming. I would like you beside me when we pass through the gates.”
“Of course,” she nodded slowly and turned to look at Finn. “But Finn should be with us too.”
“As you wish,” Logren consented. “Though I must warn you now that once we arrive both he and his brother will join their U’lfer brethren for questioning.”
“No,” she shook her head. “I will not stand by and watch my friends be dragged off to be tormented for answers to questions they surely don’t have.”
“Sister, it is but a mere precaution.”
“I don’t care, brother.” She stiffened, tilting her chin upward like a true queen who had spoken her wishes and expected everyone to bustle about making them reality. “Vilnjar and Finn are my friends. They were exiled from their home on my account and I will not see them harmed simply because you think they might have some answers you seek.”
“No one is going to harm them. You have my word.”
“Then I will be with them when they are questioned and that is my final word on the matter. For now, they will stay with me, and they will feast with your people in their hall as you promised. It has been a long journey, they are tired and hungry and…”
Finn couldn’t help but turn an appreciative look in her direction. She may have been spoiled and a little bit bratty from time to time, but she knew how to wield power when it suited her. Logren leaned back to appreciate her command presence and then turned his gaze toward Dunvarak again.
“And I think they have more than proved themselves since you met with us on the road.”
“Indeed,” Logren nodded, slightly abashed by her resolve. “If you wish it, I will make it so. No one in Dunvarak would dare deny the Light of Madra.”
The grace in her expression faltered at his use of that term, but just as quickly she offered a single nod and said, “Good.”
She followed her brother to the front of the line, reaching back to grab Finn’s forearm so she could tug him along with her. He stumbled over his own boots to keep up with her, apologizing several times as he bumped into people along the way.
Even though they could see the city, it still took more than an hour before they reached its gates. As they traveled the path became an actual road with wide, flat paving stones leading all the way to the high, wooden gates.
There was evidence of grass sprouting beside the stones, bright green and yellow blades poking through the melted, dirty snow that summoned that strange sense of homesickness Finn hadn’t expected to feel. It had only been two days since they’d passed through the mountains and into the tundra, five days since they’d left behind the cave where they’d made camp just outside Breken, but it felt like a lifetime ago that he’d felt the warmth of the sun on his face and the cushion of grass beneath his boots.
He was a child of the Edgelands, born and raised there. It was the only home he’d ever known, and he hadn’t thought he’d even miss those things when he finally got away from them, but he did. For the most part being with Lorelei made it hard to think about anything but her, though for a moment he didn’t feel any more free than he had when he was in Drekne. If anything the restrictions on his destination, the bitter cold and endless miles of snow made him feel more confined than ever before. Logren might as well put him in chains again because he felt like his hands were tied and he had no control over where he was going.
As if she sensed the fluctuation in his mood, Lorelei leaned away from her brother and into him, her shoulder nestling against his arm and the windblown fur edging her cloak brushing against his face when he turned his head down to look at her. Few men would ever admit such a thing, even to themselves, but the nearness of his mate made even the most confining, even painful circumstances endurable.
He wished he could just tell her that, tell her that when she wasn’t near him he ached for her in ways that made every part of him feel like it was on fire from the inside out. But he was not her brother, and the words Rhiorna had spoken to him still resonated in his mind. It wasn’t his place to tell her what path she was meant to walk, who she was meant to choose as her mate. He only knew he was meant to walk that path with her, to stand beside her until the end no matter what decisions she made.
“You’re always so warm,” she murmured, raising those incredible golden eyes to meet his gaze.
Finn lifted his arm for her, allowing her to nestle in closer to his chest as he lowered that arm over her shoulders and drew her closer. “The U’lfer tend to be relatively hot-blooded, but something about being near you makes my blood boil in my veins.”
She drew out just a little, the corner of her mouth twitching and her face flushing a soft shade of pink. He couldn’t help his own smile, a mischievous, almost arrogant grin upon realizing he’d gotten under her skin with that comment. He just hoped he stayed there, under her skin, on her mind and in her good graces long enough to leave a lasting impression because if she ever decided her heart felt more at home with someone else his entire world would come crashing down around him.
Nestling her body close to his again, the bellow of horns blasted from the towers flanking both sides of the gate. The ground shook and rumbled as the soldiers inside the city began to raise the portcullis to welcome them. The legs of at least a hundred bodies gathered in front of those gates, eager and ready to greet their blessed Light of Madra, their torches burning bright, eyes glistening with unshed tears. Billowing black banners bearing a silver-embroidered sigil of the Mother moon with a brood-red wolf silhouetted against her full, round body flapped and cracked in the constant wind.
Finn felt her trembling under his arm, her whole body shaking as if her legs might give out beneath her, but before he could offer her the reassurance she needed and let her know that no matter what he was there, Logren reached for her and tugged her away from him. There was a cold space where she’d stood just moments before, but she looked back over her shoulder at him almost pleadingly, her beautiful eyes round with so many fears.
“I’m right here, Princess,” he promised, adding so softly no one but him heard when he said, “I’ll always be right here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Throughout the course of her life Lorelei had endured her fair share of anxiety-inducing situations. The day she’d been presented to the court for the first time as a young woman of marriageable age she thought for sure she would die on the spot while thousands of eyes scrutinized a daughter of kings.
When emissaries arrived from distant kingdoms to inspect her for potential marriage contracts, she stood still as a statue while they ogled her the way a butcher might inspect a cow before purchasing it from the farmer that fattened it up for sale. She’d been led like a lamb to the slaughter before Aelfric’s entire kingdom the day she was betrothed to Trystay in an absurd red dress that showed off every curve her body developed throughout early womanhood. She fainted in front of all those people that day, the tightness of the waistline combining with her nervousness and making it impossible to breathe.
As she turned to wave goodbye to Pahjah and Mirien for the last time, when she spied her mother watching from the tower as her child was taken away, Lorelei felt like a part of her was dying, and in retrospect she supposed that was true. The child in her died that day, and she had no choice but to become a woman. And the night she overheard Trystay’s plot to kill her she ran, not even knowing where her feet would take her. She woke in a strange land filled with strange people who could shift in their skin and become animals. She’d been marched before their council and exiled from their lands on account of the deeds wrought by a father she hadn’t even known was hers. But none of those things seemed even half as overwhelming as the throng of bodies that lined up at the gates to meet her for the first time.
She cast a helpless look over her shoulder at Finn, but Logren seemed determined to wrench her away from the only source of comfort she’d been able to find during one of the most trying times of her life. When her brother’s arm dropped across her back, it wasn’t a gesture of reassurance, but an effort to move her forward just a little bit faster and sh
e almost stumbled over her own feet because she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, young lady.”
A tall, thick-waisted man standing in the center of the horde stepped forward to meet her, the armor he wore groaning and clanging when he lifted his arms toward her in welcome and began to approach. She started to shy away when he gripped her forearms gently in his meaty hands and held her out to look at her. The white-blond tufts of thinning hair atop his head fell into his face and he huffed them away, revealing the darkest blue eyes she’d ever seen.
“Ah, girl, I’ve been waiting to see your face again since before you were even born,” he told her. “You look just like I remember.”
“Have we… met?”
“In a distant dream,” he winked and withdrew his hands. Turning inward, toward the crowd of bodies gathered at the gate, the man grabbed her arm and lifted it high for all around them to see. “All hail, the Light of Madra has come.”
“All hail!” The overwhelming chorus of voices that answered his call brought shock waves of distress that made her legs feel like jelly beneath her.
She staggered backward a little, her heart racing furiously inside her chest. Then a steady pair of hands met with her back, the fingers curling in around the curve of her waist as Finn drew her body against his were exactly what she needed to keep her from staggering unsteadily on her feet. He was so warm, so solid behind her that she leaned into him and shivered a little when he bent to whisper in her ear, “It’s all right, Princess. I’m right behind you.”
She’d never been so happy to hear that ridiculous nickname in her life. A fraction of the tension melted away and she reached down to wrap her fingers around his, clutching them so tight she half-expected him to yank his hand away for fear she’d break his bones. But he didn’t.
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