Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  She longed for Pahjah. Her nursemaid always knew what to do and say, and surely if she could only see her for a moment she would not only comfort her, but tell her exactly what path she should choose. But Pahjah was so far away, and there was no telling if she would ever see her again.

  Lorelei blinked, her lids growing heavy as unshed tears burned behind them.

  As a girl she’d always thought her life was so complicated. She wished daily for the freedom to make her own choices and walk her own path. Now that she had no choice but to claim her freedom, she felt even more constrained. An entire race of people were counting on her, and she didn’t even know what she was supposed to do to save them.

  “Llorveth,” she whispered, “please guide me in the right direction.”

  Funny that after nearly ten minutes of Roggi running through the house it was the sound of her prayer that woke Finn. His head jerked from his shoulder, neck cracking with the sudden movement. There was a startled ferocity in his eyes, wildly scanning the room as if he didn’t remember where he was or how he’d gotten there. He smacked his tongue across his lips and stretched forward in the chair before turning his confused gaze in her direction. The disconnection faded, recognition lighting in his eyes as the corners of his mouth twitched upward.

  “Good morning.” He lifted a hand through the tangled hair hanging in his face and arched his back. She swore she heard several joints pop and crack when he leaned back again with a heavy groan. “You should know that my back is killing me.”

  “I told you to sleep in the bed,” she said softly, a hint of scolding in her tone.

  “And where would I have slept in that tiny little bed, Princess? Underneath you?” There was a teasing flash in his eyes, but she chose to ignore both the wag of his eyebrow and the tingling sensation it stirred in her gut. Rolling forward until she was sitting in the bed, she drew her knees up under her chin.

  “I don’t know, we slept in that tent together. I’m sure we could have worked something out.” She shrugged and then rested her head over her knees. “Do you think this incredibly advanced, magical city has a bath house?”

  “One can only hope.” He turned his head down to sniff himself, his nose wrinkling as he drew back again.

  She hadn’t even taken her boots off the night before, and her stockings felt damp and icky inside them. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how bad they would smell when she took them off, or how scruffy she must look. It had been more than a week since she’d last taken a proper comb to her hair, and her last bath had been a meager attempt to wash the blood from her skin in the stream outside of Breken while Viln was covering their tracks.

  “I must look a mess.” She sighed and slid her arms further down the length of her legs.

  Finn was quiet while he studied her, his intense blue eyes glimmering with unspoken appreciation. “You couldn’t look a mess if you tried.”

  She felt her skin grow as warm as if the blood beneath it had started to simmer, and the guilt she felt after waking from that dream intensified. Every morning she could wake to his kindness, the comfort of his arms around her and the solidity of his presence. All she had to do was say the words.

  “You are too kind,” she snorted a little laugh to hide her nervousness from him, but his connection to her allowed him to see right through her. It was evident in his eyes, and when the corner of his mouth tugged into a playful grin it took every ounce of strength she had inside her not to hold her hand out and invite him into her arms. Such a startling realization, it made her churning stomach feel sour.

  Where would such a gesture land her? What would it feel like to curl up to him in such a confined space and sleep without restraining herself? What would it be like if she draped her small arm across that thick, chiseled waist of his and rested her head upon his strong shoulder? Even more intriguing was the thought of his wide palm trailing up the length of her spine, his fingers slipping into her hair as he tilted her face into his waiting kiss. What did he taste like?

  Her face burned for it, but she wanted to know.

  If she thought her blood was warm before, it was surely boiling by that point. Finn’s smile only seemed to widen, and she remembered her dream, that she could hear and share her thoughts with Brendolowyn when they were wolves. Could Finn hear her thoughts all the time, just as he could feel the physical and emotional shifts in her body? The possibility was startling, and she gulped down hard on the lump that had risen into her throat.

  “What are you thinking about, Princess?” He squinted a little, as if he were trying to guess.

  She couldn’t tell if he was playing dumb, or if he really had no idea the wicked thoughts that had been running through her mind. Not that there was really anything wicked about them, though. A kiss was just a kiss… until it led to… well, whatever else came after. It was too soon to think about what came after. She hadn’t even kissed him yet, didn’t know if she ever even would.

  “I was just thinking that I am getting very hungry, and I should go see if I can find something to eat.”

  With that she jumped up from the bed and hurried across the room toward the door. She only happened to look back over her shoulder to see him watching her as she rushed through it and into her brother’s quiet house. She heard him get up from the chair with a heavy groan, his bootsteps following her through the dim hallway and into the spacious main room.

  *****

  It was no palace, but it was certainly bigger than many of the noble houses in Aelfric’s keep. She had been to visit at least three in her lifetime, and though they’d been grand, few of them had more than one room for sleeping in.

  Judging from the length of the hallway they’d just come from, Logren’s house had at least one spare bedroom, as well as a separate room for little Roggi and a spacious main hall with a long, intricately carved wooden table in the center. Well lit with oil lamps and a blazing hearth to warm every inch of space, it was everything she’d always thought a home should be like when she was a girl. There was no choice but for a family to be close in such a space.

  “You think there is food?” Finn crossed his arms over his chest and surveyed the room. His stomach gave a loud, gurgling lurch, and Lorelei tried to stifle her urge to laugh.

  “With a child in the house, I imagine so.”

  “Oh, right,” he nodded.

  “I overheard Logren’s wife say she was going to the market this morning and to gather eggs. Maybe she is planning to make breakfast.”

  They were both so caught up in admiring her brother’s home that neither of them heard Logren until he spoke. “Viina usually makes a very big morning meal. There will be more than plenty to fill our bellies soon enough. Eggs, fried bread, all the salted pork and spiced potatoes you can eat.”

  “I can eat a lot,” Finn chuckled, rubbing his hand across his belly.

  Lorelei shamelessly noticed a hint of muscled skin and that enticing trail of hair disappearing into the waistline of his breeches as the too-tight shirt he wore edged up with the movement. Her belly tightened in that strange way again, like a nervous shock rippling through her, and she steered her attention toward the fire and her brother as Vilnjar walked in behind him.

  “My brother speaks true, I’m afraid. He is like to eat you out of your home if you give him an all you can eat invitation.”

  “There will be plenty of food and then some, even for an ox like Finn,” Logren laughed, reaching out to clap Finn on the shoulder before steering him toward the table. “Did you all rest well?”

  “As well as one can rest in a chair,” Finn grumbled, sliding into the bench and arching his back into a long stretch.

  “That bed is very small, I know. Brendolowyn usually sleeps in there when he isn’t preoccupied with his duties at the lyceum. Sometimes he is there for days on end, buried in old scrolls and we barely see him at all.”

  “You have a lyceum here?” She perked up, her mind instantly drawn from the tedious monotony of her own guilty conflict up
on hearing the mage’s name.

  Logren chuckled, leaning across the table to pour them all steaming cups of rick, black kaffe. “Not like the Lyceum in Leithe, no, but it is the tallest tower in Dunvarak, home to eleven of the finest mages in all the land, and fifteen mages in training.”

  “Your entire city is maintained with magic,” Vilnjar observed, distaste with the notion curling his upper lip. “That is quite a feat for only eleven mages.”

  “In truth it only requires the energy of four mages to keep the weather barrier in place so we might eke out our meager living here. The others educate the students.”

  “Eke, you say?” Vilnjar’s disdain for his word choice was evident in the snort of laughter that followed. “I would hardly call the living your people have made here meager, my friend.”

  “Your home is nicer than the main hall in Drekne.” Finn reached for his kaffe and sipped noisily from his cup. For a moment Lorelei stared at him as if he were some kind of beast, but before she could ask him where his manners were, he went on talking. “If everyone here lives as you do, Logren, I would have to agree with my brother. You have managed to build quite a city.”

  “And all of this is because of the magical barrier?” Lorelei asked.

  “The barrier has only provided us with the warmth required to survive in these harsh lands. It has allowed us to grow crops, raise animals and ensure that our children grow up healthy and strong.”

  “And you’re sure no one knows of this place?”

  “No one except the chosen, and of course, the two of you.”

  “The chosen?” Lorelei turned her attention away from Finn’s barbaric slurping and focused on her brother. “Who are the chosen, and I swear to gods if you tell me all in good time I will scream.”

  Logren laughed heartily, leaning his back against the chair behind him. “The chosen are those the Light of Madra has guided here. In dreams and visions, in moments of darkness and despair, you reached out to them from somewhere beyond this time and showed them all the way home. We have also had contact with the King Under the City over the years, but neither he, nor his men, could find this place without an open invitation.”

  Lorelei shuddered inside her own skin, every part of her suddenly feeling so cold that she cupped her hands around the warm mug in front of her and leaned a little closer to the table. “How is that even possible? How did I guide people here, to a place I’ve never been and all before I was even born? I still don’t understand it.”

  “No one knows how it is possible, Lorelei, only that it is.”

  The four of them were just silent around the table, their minds dwelling on that strange reality for a long time before Viina and Roggi entered. She carried a heavy basket teeming with goods from the market, and the boy swung a small, padded basket filled with fresh eggs. He was talking about how many eggs he’d counted in the basket when he looked up and saw her. Squealing excitedly, “Auntie, you’re awake!” the basket of eggs he carried nearly dropped to the floor in his excitement, and breakfast would have been lost had it not been for his mother’s quick hand.

  He darted across the floor and threw himself in her lap, nearly knocking the wind out of her with the tightness of his hug.

  “I waited and waited so long for you to wake up this day,” he told her, burying his face into her ribs and squeezing even tighter.

  “Roggi, I swear! You are going to be the death of me.”

  “Reflexes like a warrior, my love.” Logren’s laughter bellowed through the household as Viina cursed under her breath and scowled at her son. “Roggi, what have we told you about eggs?”

  He drew back and scrambled up her legs so he could settle into her lap. Raising his bright stare to her face, he asked, “Did you know that eggs are breakable, Auntie.”

  She nuzzled her cheek against his, kissing the cold, pudgy flesh before squeezing her arms around him. Despite all the strangeness of the situation she was in, the sudden presence of her nephew in her life seemed to make the rest of it go away. It made her long for a day when she might have her own family, her own children to coddle and raise and teach about the fragility of eggs.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, Finn leaned across the bench and over her shoulder to tickle the little boy in her lap. “The only thing I know about eggs is that I like to eat them.”

  The heat emanating from his body into hers was intoxicating, conflicting with the chills that tingled through her and making her whole body feel like a bowl of morning mush. Gone was the momentary annoyance she’d felt with him as he’d slurped his coffee, her hormones immediately steering back to that place that made her long for him. A man like Finn would be as good a father as he would be a husband. A man like Finn would be the perfect match for her.

  “I like to eat them too!” Roggi declared, his eyes widening at how much they seemed to have in common. “All chopped up and scrambly. Uncle says eggs make little war mages like me big and strong. Mummy, will you make me eggs now so I can be big as Finn one day?”

  Viina’s scowl warmed into a slow smile when she met eyes with Lorelei, the loose tendrils of her dark brown hair falling into her face as she shook her head. “Eggs for the little war mage, all chopped up and scrambly. It’s on my long list of things to do this morning.”

  “Is there anything I can help you with, Viina?” Lorelei slid Roggi off her lap and onto the bench, putting a bit of space between herself and Finn before rising to help her sister-in-law make breakfast.

  “Keeping that little monster busy while I get things done would be the biggest help to me right now.”

  “I can do that.”

  A knock sounded on the other side of the door before it swung open just enough to allow Brendolowyn to peek his head into the house. Seeing him there brought the confusion she’d felt upon waking back to the surface.

  “Am I late to breakfast?”

  “Uncle is here!” Roggi forgot all about Finn. He jumped down from the bench and raced across the room to throw himself into Bren’s waiting arms.

  He scooped the boy up off the floor and spun him around before hugging him affectionately. “My little war mage. Have you been practicing your meditations so I can teach you to make fire?”

  There was a brief moment of conflict in Lorelei’s gut, her mind immediately reeling through the fleeting memory of her dream. The two of them running as wolves through the glade, the words his spirit spoke to hers and the declaration she made about belonging to Finn. She didn’t really belong to Finn, so much as he belonged to her, but she could belong to him… if she wanted to.

  Avoiding eye contact when Bren spoke, she slid back into the bench beside Finn and scooted a little closer to him. Of all the things for her mind to be preoccupied with, her heart, or rather her hormones, should have been the least of her concerns. Yet the minute the side of her thigh edged up against Finn’s, both her heart and her hormones seemed to burn like fire in her blood.

  “Mesitations are hard!”

  “Only because you can’t sit still long enough to concentrate on clearing your mind.” Viina rolled her eyes and lowered her baskets onto the preparation table near the hearth.

  “Why can’t I just make fire like you, Uncle?”

  “Magic requires a clear mind, little one. And a clear mind comes…”

  “From mesitations,” Roggi groaned.

  “Meditations,” Brendolowyn corrected.

  Bren carried the little boy to the table and sat down on the bench opposite Finn and Lorelei. She continued to avoid eye contact with him, though from time to time as the morning progressed, she could feel the heat of his gaze on her almost as strongly as she could feel the jealous surge of Finn’s temper whenever he noticed the mage’s lingering stares.

  Despite the tugging on her emotions, sitting down to break her fast with family brought her a sense of peace she hadn’t felt since leaving home with Trystay nearly two weeks earlier. She didn’t know her brother even half as well as she thought she’d known Trystay,
but there was a sense of comfort in his home, with his family, that made her feel welcome. She found herself easily laughing, teasing her nephew as if she’d known him all his life and admiring the playful way Logren interacted with his own son.

  She couldn’t deny that she envied her brother the brief time he had known with their father; she envied his memories of the man she hadn’t even known existed before she woke up in Drekne with Finn leaning over her like an eager puppy waiting to be acknowledged.

  What would it have been like growing up with her brother? Would she have missed out completely on Miri’s life? She couldn’t imagine a life without Mirien in it, or one in which the man sitting at the table replaced her little sister. In fact, were it not for Trystay, or rather, the man she had believed to be her father all her life, she and Miri would probably have been sitting together in the garden snickering behind their toast while Pahjah lectured them on their manners.

  What would Pahjah think of Finn, she wondered? Losing her appetite when she thought about how much she missed her sister, she’d barely pushed her half-full plate away from her before he slid it in front of him and started shoveling bitefuls into his mouth. A mouth, which by the way, hadn’t stopped talking long enough for him to actually chew his food. She watched from the corner of his eye as he tore a piece of bread with his teeth like he hadn’t eaten in a week.

  Logren leaned back in his chair at the head of the table and rested his hands across his full belly before leveling his gaze across the table at her. “You will want to meet with Yovenna this morning, I’ve no doubt. You have so many questions only she can answer.”

  “I would like to speak with your seer, but first what I would really like is to take a bath,” she confessed. “And perhaps some clean clothes.”

  “Viina can show you to the bathhouse,” he leveled a look at his wife, who only nodded, “and finding you something clean to wear won’t be a problem.”

  “Thank you,” she nodded.

  “While the two of you are at the bathhouse, Hodon would still like very much to speak with Vilnjar and Finn.”