Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  “When I was a young acolyte on the Isle of Dorayne the Light of Madra came to me in a fever dream. She rode through a veil of stars on the back of the Great Stag, Llorveth, to meet me. She held her hand out and I took it. Together we walked through the sky until we came to the river of Madra’s tears where we sat together for a lifetime beside the water.”

  “The Light of Madra,” Lorelei repeated softly just before Finn heard her swallow, a hard gulp in her throat as the muscles in her body tensed. “Why is it you call me that?”

  “Because you were chosen by them, a daughter of their union. Compassionate as Madra and as willing to sacrifice yourself as Llorveth, you are the embodiment of their greatest qualities. The light of Madra’s love flows deepest in your heart, and only you have the power to save all of Llorveth’s children from the dark passages of a history unwritten that will drive our kind to extinction like the Dvergr, the Aqatiiri, the Drakiir…”

  She shook her head slowly, the waves of her bright auburn hair catching the light from the blazing oil lanterns dangling from every post in the hall. There were much more important things going on, but for that brief moment the only thing he could think about was her hair. Like fire, he thought, his twitching fingers longing to reach out and see if it burned him. Even when the seer began to speak again, he could barely attune himself to her words.

  “While we sat together by the river of tears, you told me everything. The story of Llorveth and Madra, the other children like me born of their love for one another and the place in the south where those children should hide until you came to us. You appeared to each and every man and woman in this city at one time or another and guided them to this place. You reached across time and saved many of their lives because our people have been chosen.”

  He looked toward Logren, remembering the story he’d told around the fire and wondering how such a thing could be true.

  “By who?”

  “By the gods, of course,” the old woman said, as if it were the most simple and clear answer in the world. “By the river you told me everything. Of your trials, your plight, your losses and your heartaches, and you told me all the ways it needed to change so that our people would survive. You even told me the manner in which you would arrive here, the exact date you would come, how old you would be. With two black wolves and a host of a soldiers led by your own half-brother, Logren Bone-Breaker and an elven mage named Brendolowyn Raven-Storm. And here we all sit, together now in the hall of Dunvarak where I am to tell you the road you must walk in order to lift our people from the shadows to glory.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She was so much older than you are now, Lorelei. So much stronger. She had seen so many things. Love and war, birth and death. Her brow was heavy with the burden of it all, but not yours. You have barely begun to feel the weight of it all, but you will, my child. No matter what path you take, you will feel those burdens more than anyone.”

  “That’s… that’s um… well…”

  Finn’s fingers tightened on her shoulder, the tips of them pressing into the taut muscle in an act meant to alleviate some of the stress she was feeling, but she shrugged him away and leaned forward in her chair.

  “I left Dorayne after that dream and traveled southeast by boat with a band of Kivtaryn pirates to find Dunvarak and make it my home. It was not the place you see here today. It was nothing like that at all, but you told me if I came here, they would follow and we would build a safe haven together so our children could grow.”

  The sound of Vilnjar’s scoff echoed through the silent hall, rising above the crackling fire until the seer turned to look at him.

  “You do not believe, Vilnjar the Strong, son of Deken and Eornlaith, but you will see and before all is said and done, you will believe.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  Finn had never heard such disrespect in his brother’s tone. Viln, who put honor and duty above all things, would never be so flippant with an elder, not even a seer, the likes of whom he’d never put much stock in.

  “Everything Rhiorna told us was true, Viln,” he said over his shoulder. “And you saw with your own eyes what happened in the council chamber. There was a god’s light inside her.”

  “I saw a clever trick, and so did you. You simply choose to believe it meant something more.”

  “Oh, come on, Viln. There’s a big difference between clever sorcery and divine presence. We’ve both seen enough sorcery to be able to discern between the two. Whatever happened to Lorelei in Drekne was not sorcery, and you know it.”

  He scoffed again, the irritated sound scraping through his throat as he sat back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “You may know that, brother, but I’m still not certain.”

  “You do not need to be certain in order for the Light of Madra to complete her task,” Yovenna told him before returning her attention to Lorelei. “You told me that it was from this place you were meant to embark on the first of many tasks. You, your mate and the Alvarii mage.”

  Again she seemed to ignore the implication of their hearts’ connection. Shaking her head, she said stiffly, “I think I’ve journeyed far enough. I’m tired and I don’t know where to go from here.”

  Glancing toward the mage, Bren seemed almost smug after hearing his name spoken. Finn smirked and rolled his eyes, catching a swift elbow to the ribs from Vilnjar. He drew back and scowled at his brother, the wolf beneath his skin just itching for an excuse to tear into him. Viln sensed this, but didn’t back down, tilting his head in that condescending, scolding fashion that never failed to make Finn revel in his own guilt.

  The old woman laughed, a long, dry sound that soon mingled with short coughs like bones rattling in her throat. “Your journey has barely begun, child. The road ahead of you is long and filled with peril, but it is your journey to take, nonetheless.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound very encouraging,” she started to relax in her chair again, but he could still feel the tension of her muscles, the stiffness contracting his own until he felt completely on edge.

  “When you came, I was to tell you everything you’d told me and prepare you for the road ahead. That is my great gift from this life, and I have waited many years to claim it.”

  Ignoring her proud confession, Lorelei asked, “What if I choose not to walk that road?”

  “You will make the right choice, Lorelei,” Yovenna assured her. “I have seen it.”

  She shifted uncomfortably, her nostrils flaring a little as she drew in a discouraged breath and looked down at her hands in her lap. “I just want to go home.”

  “Wherever you go from this day forward, you are already home.” The seer turned her gaze on Finn, the power of her stare calming the instant flare of nervous tension rising in his chest. “Home is not a place, but a state of mind my child. Your home will always be with you.”

  Frustrated with that response, Lorelei pushed her chair away from the table, the feet scraping across the wooden floor beneath it. “I am so weary of riddles.” Rising, she looked particularly at her brother, her amber eyes narrowing into two angry slits. “My brother promised answers here, but every single one of you talks in riddles, like I’m supposed to just know what it all means. Logren told me everything would be clear in time. That you could tell me all I needed to know, but nothing you or the seer in Drekne has said makes even the slightest bit of sense whatsoever. How could I come to you in a dream decades before I was even born to tell you when I would come to this place on this day so you could tell me what I’m supposed to do? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?”

  “Yes,” Yovenna nodded, her voice a hiss of disbelieving laughter. “Though ridiculous as it all seems, it is truth. You were born, just as Llorveth promised, just as you promised me in that dream and here you are now. Your brother has led you to this place. Your wolves have come with you.”

  “Why wouldn’t I just appear to myself in a dream if I wanted to tell myself something?”
>
  “How sure are you that you haven’t appeared to yourself in dreams? Do you even remember your dreams, Lorelei?”

  When the old woman asked that question Lorelei was so stunned she dropped back into her seat again and just stared off to her left, as if she were expecting something magical to appear there and give her all the answers she so desperately wanted. Finn could feel just how desperate she was, her frustration coursing through him until his own hands clenched atop his thighs beneath the table.

  “If you search inside yourself, you will know that what I speak is true, Lorelei. Just as you know the truth about who you are. Daughter of Rognar and Ygritte, a child of Llorveth and Madra’s love with the power to drive back the darkness in this world and bring our people to glory.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that? I don’t suppose unborn me told you that, did I?”

  His appreciation for the sarcasm in her tone went unspoken, but it left a grin on his face he’d be wearing for a while.

  “Only that you are meant to embark from this place on a perilous journey to retrieve the sacred horns of Llorveth. With those horns, our people will possess the power to embrace the wolves that sleep beneath our skin so that we might rise and hold a hand out to our brother U’lfer and reclaim everything we have lost to mankind.”

  Lorelei sighed, a deflating breath that sagged her shoulders as she hunched forward in the chair and dropped her head. “Aren’t all those stories just symbolic? I mean, even if all you say happened between Llorveth and Foreln, why would Llorveth’s horns be here in our world?”

  “Because they were hidden in our world until the chosen one arrived to claim them.”

  “Hidden by whom?”

  Finn swore she muttered under her breath that she didn’t want to claim anything, and then she lifted her head again. For a moment the weariness and doubt was gone from her face, and in its place a newfound sense of purpose. Odd that she employed that purpose to put an end to their day, but he was grateful nonetheless when she said, “I’m too tired to even process any of this.”

  “Of course you are, my dear child. Forgive me. Tonight is not the night for telling you everything that waits. You’ve traveled long and far, you’ve seen much and you are weary. I have waited so long for this time, for this moment of mine, that I have forgotten my manners.” Yovenna pushed herself slowly from her chair, her bones cracking again like dried corn over a fire as she groaned the details of her age. “In all my excitement, I think a part of me feared I would not get to live out the final moments of my task, but there will be plenty of time on the morrow to give you the finer details of that which awaits you.”

  Lorelei didn’t seem so sure of anything Yovenna said when they finally left the hall. Parting ways with Brendolowyn and Hodon, the three of them followed Logren through the peaceful, empty streets of Dunvarak until they arrived outside a quiet house with a single candle burning in the window. He unlocked the door and ushered them inside, then offered them a mug of ale, which Lorelei turned down.

  “I am very tired, brother. I only wish to sleep the tangle of this day away so I can look at it all again with a fresh perspective in the morning.”

  “Of course,” Logren nodded, glancing toward the hallway. “But be forewarned, mornings come quick in this house. Roggi is generally up before the sun, and when Roggi is up, everyone else is up too. The boy is a terror.”

  “An adorable terror,” she laughed softly, and then followed his gaze toward the hallway. “Logren, why didn’t you tell me about them? Your wife, your son?”

  “There are a lot of things I haven’t told you, Lorelei.”

  “You and everyone else,” she muttered, turning a quick glance in Finn’s direction before Logren spoke again. “But why?”

  “I don’t know, I guess there was a part of me that just didn’t know what to say. There was so much I wanted to tell you the very moment I first saw you, but in the grand scheme of things none of it felt even half as important as getting you here safely.”

  That answer didn’t satisfy her, but the level of his obvious discomfort kept her from pushing the issue. “Well, I hope that in time you can tell me these things you want to tell me. It seems unfair coming to a place where everyone knows all there is to know about me, but is completely unwilling to share any part of themselves in return.”

  Reaching up to stroke his finger through the long, red mustaches trailing into his beard, Logren’s face twisted with unspoken conflict. “You are right, sister. It was unfair of me, and tomorrow after you sit down with the seer, we will have plenty of time for me to tell you everything you want to know. Come, let me show you to your room.”

  Finn hesitated at the end of the hallway when Lorelei followed Logren into the shadows, the light of the candle he held illuminating the darkness as he led her into a bedroom at the end of the hallway. She stopped outside the doorway and looked down the hall for Finn, gesturing with a tilt of her head for him to follow. Vilnjar nudged him after her, and he nearly tripped over his feet, not sure why he was feeling so nervous.

  They had slept curled up together for the last few nights, but sleeping beneath a roof together in the same bed would be strange. Even if they were supposed to be mated.

  “Sleep well, sister.” Logren nodded once in Finn’s direction, a lingering look that seemed to speak volumes on the kinds of things he would do to Finn if he ever hurt the sister he barely knew, but it made his stomach tighten nonetheless. He glanced past him, toward Vilnjar standing in the hallway and wondered if he would shove him into the room with them as well to make sure they didn’t cross any lines.

  As if he ever would…

  Though when he pulled the door closed behind them, leaving them truly alone together for the first time since they’d been by the stream his heart skipped a beat. He listened to the sound of their receding footsteps in the hall before attuning his senses to Lorelei’s unsteady breathing.

  “Well… this is… awkward,” she laughed nervously, but kept her voice soft to keep from waking the little boy sleeping somewhere in the house.

  Finn snorted a low chuckle and turned around to face her, though he avoided her eyes. “A little bit.”

  “I mean, I’ve gotten so used to… I don’t know, you always being there that now someone’s put us alone together in the same room and closed the door I feel like…” Her voice trailed into silence, the tension in the room growing exponentially as she exhaled a hitched breath.

  “Like what, Princess?”

  He didn’t realize his own hands were trembling until he reached out to grip her chin so he could lift her face to look at him. She didn’t fight the glide of his hand, but refused to meet eyes with him, her beautiful amber orbs flitting around the room and catching the light of the single lantern on the table. She was shaking too, as if there were some expectation she faced that she simply wasn’t ready for.

  “I don’t know,” she shook her head again, gently jerking her chin from his grip. “There’s so much I just don’t understand.” She paused there for a moment, finally lifting her gaze to meet with his. “About all of this. My life, my path, about you and me. Since the day I woke up in Drekne on the healer’s table and first looked into your eyes, I felt like you were hiding something from me. I think I finally know what it is, but I don’t understand why you would keep it from me.”

  “It’s not exactly the kind of thing you just say to a total stranger,” he muttered, his arm dropping at his side as she slipped her face from his grip. “And it’s complicated. It’s not as cut and dry as you think.”

  “Maybe not, but I felt it when I woke, no I felt it before that when I was running for my life. A great shift. I thought it was just everything else going on, but I realize now it was you all along. I could feel your heart beating, your energy merging with mine. All that talk about mates by the stream, and I heard you and Viln when we were in that cave. I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s true, isn’t it? We are mated.”

  “It’s only true
so long as you choose it for yourself, Princess. My heart,” he began, the words lingering painfully at the back of his throat.

  He hadn’t wanted her to find out the way she did, from someone else, but for her to grow into it over time and fall in love with him. It was far too much to ask, and he knew it, but the romantic he liked to keep hidden beneath his tough facade really wanted that kind of love with her. The gradual kind that built up so strong it was impossible to resist and even more impossible to ever turn away from.

  “My soul, it is yours and yours alone. I could not turn my back on you even if I wanted to, but you…” He paused, shaking his head as the possibility of her not choosing him sunk in. There was a brief flashing image, a reminder of the way the mage seemed to look at her, the way he lingered near her every chance he got, and Finn’s jealousy flared to the surface. He felt his fist clench at his side then, causing her to tense silently when she picked up on his anger surge. “You are not full-blooded U’lfer like me, so you’re not bound to our bond. You have the spirit of Madra in you, and you are free to mate with whomever you wish.”

  “It still sounds so barbaric when you put it that way,” she scoffed a little, the nervousness of her energy quickening in his gut. “Mating. It sounds more like something two people do, rather than what they are to one another.”

  “Mating means so much more than that to us, Lorelei.” He wanted to reach out to her again, to quell the nervous flutter tickling deep in her gut with a touch of his hand, but he was so afraid she’d push him away he kept his hand down at his side. “Two people can be mated and know that bond without ever even touching each other, though I’ve heard that once it’s recognized it’s almost impossible for them to keep their hands off one another.” He chuckled again, more nervous to be having that conversation with her than he ever expected to be. “And you have to know I would never… I wouldn’t push you into anything like that. For now I’m just content to be near you, to be your friend and follow you on this journey the gods have destined you for.”