Dhreo whined again.
“Almost done, I promise.” It was getting harder to breathe. My heart pumped in my ears, and my blood flowed. I waited, as one by one the threads that held my life to this earth snapped, until only a few were left.
When the blade was red hot, I held my breath and plunged it against my skin. It sizzled, then burned. Not even holding my breath could hold back the scent of rotting eggs and burning flesh.
When it was too much to bear, I dropped the knife. I couldn’t remain upright. Even the strength of the old magic was not enough to block the haze of pain, and I collapsed to the floor.
From the hallway came a rumbling of blocks. My temporary door was coming loose with the elves’ efforts.
I forced myself to my knees, placing my hands firmly at the center of the ward. If only Ellsmid was here to see this trick, I thought grimly. With all the old magic I had, I reached into the taint of the blood magic. It was easy – like slipping into a warm bath. The blood was mine, and wanted to be reunited with me. The old magic was mine too, and I did not have to fight to join the two together. And then I willed the rocks apart.
The heels of my hands crumbled the stone beneath them; cracks spread downward, though there was little sign of them but the deep rumble of grinding rocks. And then the rock split outward, shattering the mark, my blood draining into the cracks. Then the rumble beneath my feet seemed to come from all around me as the entire mountain moved.
Dhreo whined, then clamped his teeth around my shoulder. The pain was distant, faraway, the bubbling of the old magic close and near and overwhelming, but it was enough to get me up, get me moving. I did not move far; I had spent my life force, and there was little left.
Dhreo knelt, nudging his head under an arm. I gripped his fur and skin tightly, and he twisted sideways. Between both of our efforts, I ended up draped over his back, clinging on as hard as I could.
The mountain shuddered; dust shimmered upwards and downwards, enveloping the room in cloud; debris large and small fell from the ceiling.
“Hurry, Dhreo,” I murmured. “As fast as you can.”
Back up the hall Dhreo charged as the earth shook beneath him. His muscles and tendons tensed and stretched beneath me as I clung to him with all the strength I had left. Then we were up the stairs; with every jolt I thought I would fall, but Dhreo swerved and slowed and sped up and did what he had to do to keep me balanced on his back. And then we dived past startled Dagnar warriors, and over my boulders, and into the white of a snowstorm. I clung until my frozen hands could feel no more; I heard Dalandaras call, but we passed him too, and then I saw and felt no more.
CHAPTER SIX
I was aware of the passing of days only in the vaguest sense. I knew that Dhreo stayed with me, and buried me in snow and laid on top of me to keep me warm, and then found me a cave and hid me in it. Where Dalandaras and the others were, I knew not.
Dhreo brought me food - dead, unskinned animals, a flask he had scrounged from somewhere and earned himself a great cut to his side in the process.
When I came to enough to see the outlines of the cave, and could hear the storm that howled outside, I managed to set myself a little fire. That act of using the old magic for a little warmth cost me another day or two in lost time. I couldn’t be certain, only that I could feel the turn of the earth deep in my bones.
I knew the mountain had come down around me, but I had paid too heavy a price. Already I thought ahead to Tal Anor. It was already in a crumbled state, but enough of it was intact that it was useful to those who wished to work blood magic. Singael had found that out, to the cost of his life.
I had thought two weeks had passed when I was able to raise myself upright again. Dhreo helped me skin the poor rabbits he had brought me, and we feasted together. He had gotten thinner - he was sacrificing himself to keep me alive. When the guilt ate at me too much, I told him to go, to look after himself. I was not for death yet.
Instead the hound brought Dalandaras to me.
No words could describe the joy I felt at seeing him alive and well. He brought food, water, skis, a sled he had pulled himself with clothes and furs and supplies - everything we would need to be on the run in winter.
When I was well enough to stay awake longer than an hour, we managed to celebrate our reunion.
“Give me news,” I begged. “What has been happening?”
“Eat,” Dalandaras ordered, holding dried seal jerky up. I complied, though I did not like it.
“Tell me.”
“Your father is alive,” he said.
I let out a sob I hadn’t known I had been holding in.
He held me as the crying passed. “Eliawen was able to confirm it to me, but just barely. He is still held at Winter’s Crown.”
“Then the skirmish did not go in his favor.”
“In a way, it has,” he replied. “The mines are stopped; the workers are on strike. The soldiers will do only the minimal of what is required of them, no more or less.”
I thought of the Captain of the Guard, and Tunil and Iasul, and hoped that they were safe. “Aerik? Firien?”
“They are hidden,” Dalandaras replied. “And guarded by your foulings. When you have strength, we will go to them.”
I nodded. “What do I do, Dalandaras? How can I protect everything in the Dead Lands, and all outside of it, too?”
“I think the old magic has bought you some time,” he replied. “The storms are fierce, and winter is coming on quickly. I think that you should retreat for now, and establish yourself as Lady of your lands. You have your guardian, and your ghosts, and your colossi. Use them as messengers, and call those who are loyal to your father to your lands. You can protect them there with all the others.”
“Not against winter storms,” I said quietly. “Not against their own fears about ghosts and foulings and dreadwolves. What will they do when they see all of that?”
“You did not flinch from them.”
“I did what I needed to do.”
“And so will they.” Dalandaras kissed my forehead. “Sleep again, and we will wait out the storm, and go to Tal Anor.”
I did as my doctor ordered. I slept again, and let him feed me, and feed Dhreo, and when there was a break in the storms and Dhreo allowed it, Dalandaras put me in the sled and dragged me onward.
It seemed the only lucky break we had. The sky was clouded and dark all around the horizon, but directly above us was the sun, and clear sky. No average human, and perhaps not even the average elf, would dare venture out when the clouds threatened so. I wanted to reach out, to reach into the snow and sky and see if the old magic had anything to do with our good fortune, but I was too weak.
The path was difficult - traveling through jutting mountains was treacherous enough, but Dalandaras was pulling me. I walked with snowshoes whenever the route was flat enough, but we camped in caves and outcrops and dug our own in the snow. The days grew shorter, and the nights longer. We were not blessed with total relief from the storms, but it seemed to come only at night when we were well-sheltered from anything that could harm us.
When I had lost track of days entirely, we came to Tal Anor.
When I had first come here, there had been a great archway reaching over the river that ran through Tal Anor. Now, the snow had so buried the land that were it not for Dalandaras’s elven gifts, we would have sunk ten feet into the drifts. The arch was there, but we now stood halfway up it. The river was free of ice, but rushed fast and deep. I abandoned the sled here, and came to stand on the land that I now ruled over. I felt stronger here. The magic and spirit of this place flowed through me deeper than any breath I could ever manage to drag in. I didn’t need Dalandaras’ help now - I was home.
When we passed the great archway, I reached out and touched its smooth white stone. This was the true entrance to my land. It would have to be fortified, and made strong again. When I had first come here, the feeling of the oily taint of Adhannor had ruined any good feelings I m
ight have held about it; but now I, not Adhannor, held it - I had no wish to make it tainted again. Which meant that I could not rely on any feeling of taint or bad feelings or gut instinct to turn men and elves away from it. I would have to turn it back into a true kingdom.
As we walked along the river, the blanket of snow lessened, until we were on exposed ground again. The trees, once dead and twisted, showed some signs of life - a touch of green where new leaves grew, a hint of pink or red where a flower or berry was trying to grow. The birds of the north - white hawks and black ravens and seagulls and others - swooped through the sky again. I smiled, and when I looked to Dalandaras, he smiled with me. Dhreo went bounding through the trees, and I even laughed at his chase rabbits and foxes.
We were on the east side of the river - the wrong side for shelter. But plenty of ruins had fallen into the river, and though the water rushed and should have been at a higher level, enough great stones and fallen pillars peeked above the surface. With our sled as a little bridge, we moved slowly across the river until we came to the west side. We had fought a battle here, and Dalandaras’ grandfather Singael had died here, at my hand. I had been possessed at the time, but the guilt was there. I had not minded Singael’s death, for his crimes were great, but I had liked Dalandaras even then, and had not wanted to cause him pain.
When we finally came to the beach, we shed our burdens and walked towards the ruins of Tal Anor. We were circled by mountains that rose sharply to the west, and the river and a lake to the east. The ancient buildings rose sharply of white stone, the doorways nearly twice the height of any man. I had not taken a good look the last time I was here, but now I had to consider a kingdom. Many buildings were simply unusable - the roofs had long fallen in, or the walls had crumbled, or cracked and would not provide adequate shelter. But others were intact; if we added doors, and could make glass for the windows, they would shelter well.
Everything was along one central road, and most of the intact buildings were centered around the square. Even the colossi, when they had lived in flesh, had organized their villages much as anyone else did today.
At the end of the road, though, was what could have been a church - tall, domed, clearly meant for the august person or people. I did not venture in to know what was in there - it was a place to call forth the colossi.
Between the temple to the colossi and the beach were the scattered ruins of a blood altar. There was a doorway built into the stone of the sheer mountain face, a long tunnel that ran downward for some time before coming to a great hall built deep into the mountains. That was the place Adhanel had chosen as her tomb, and I could not disturb it. But the rest was all in crumbles, from a great cataclysm and separation of the land and river. The altars here were cracked and crumbled, great seals broken, all of it open to the elements above. At the beach there was but one deep, circular trench, its wards and seals intact.
With daylight coming to an end, Dalandaras strode towards it.
“I would not…” I said, thinking of the time that had passed and the decay that must now have set upon what was left of Singael, if the blood magic had not twisted his body into something else. I had been in too much of a hurry last time to observe the results of the magic.
“I must,” Dalandaras replied, and I let him go.
Dhreo whined at me.
“Shelter, I suppose,” I said to my hound, though I looked back at my lover.
Dhreo huffed.
“Then let’s find a place.” I went back to the beach and found our sled, and with Dhreo’s help we pushed and pulled it to the town square. We found a house, its one room tall and large, the roof intact and the doorway facing away from the wind. I swept out the snow and pulled our sled in, and lit a torch.
It was then, when my hand passed in front of the white flame, did I notice something. My hand had… I passed my hand in front of the flame again. Instead of just seeing the flame’s outline around my fingers, my skin dark against the light as it should have been, I had seen through my hand.
I pulled it away from the light, flexed my fingers. It was as flesh as it ever had been though calloused and worn, the blood still pumping through it, the bones still solid if a little abused. But in front of the fire, it all turned translucent. I could see through my skin, through the tendons and blood vessels, even through the bones. I knew that I wasn’t entirely human when Singael had pronounced me an inheritor and set me upon a path to claim the old magic that was open to me. But now… now I was becoming Adhannor. A spirit that was dead, and yet not, that was of flesh, and yet not.
This was the price of being the Lady.
I wanted to cry, as I had cried when Dalandaras told me my father was alive, but there were not enough tears for this. I could not undo this, as much as I wished to.
Instead, I sank to the stone floor and pulled my cloak and the fur blankets about me, as if wanted warmth would make me human again. It was useless. There was too much work to be done, and already I was thinking of fortifications, and blocking the river, and hoping that mother’s mercs would make it to us before an army could be raised by Ellsmid or the Dagnar Queen, and I could recruit the living as well as the dead to my cause then I would need food and water and more shelter…
The tears came in desperation then, with my arms pulling Dhreo tightly to me. I called out to Annel, asked her to bring Aerik and Firien to me, and then I went back to crying. When it was night and I had run out of tears, I released Dhreo and told him to go fatten himself up. I had not taken good care of him, and I needed to.
Dalandaras returned, but my tears had dried and the torch had gone out. I hoped his elf eyes could not see the state of my face.
“He was but bones,” Dalandaras murmured as he sank down next to me. I waited for condemnation, but he merely pulled me close as we had slept the many nights previous. “I buried them elsewhere.”
I nodded, and though Dalandaras slept, I waited awake for morning to come.
When it finally came, it brought my foulings, and Aerik and Firien.
They had acquired a boat, a small thing, and with four hounds and two men aboard it was well-packed. But I had not been happier to see them, nor more filled with dread.
“We were worried!” Aerik said with a grin as he jumped onto the beach, and met him half in the water. “We had to hide from the Dagnar’s patrols, and then the mountain just collapsed. Even Dalandaras thought we’d be long-separated from you with winter upon us. Why, lass,” he said as his arms circled me. “You’re skin and bone!”
“It’s been a hard autumn,” I replied, trying to sound as light as possible. And then I was forced to kneel as my foulings demanded attention in turn. They had thinned as Dhreo had, but they were all alive.
“Lady,” Firien said when he at last had a chance to greet me. I thought he had thinned as well; it seems he had sacrificed his food to keep Aerik afloat. No, I would not be able to take Aerik any farther. Such quests as what were starting to formulate in my mind would kill him.
“How goes your exile?” I asked.
Firien raised a brow. “The Queen is searching for me, if that is what you mean,” he tapped his temple. “I can feel her rightly enough. She has sent birds to search for me, but the foulings have kept us hidden.”
“I think that I may want those birds to find you,” I replied. As it had been for much of our journey, every horizon seemed to threaten a storm, but not where we stood. Though the sun had not fully risen above the dark clouds, the sky above us was clear and blue. “If they have made it through any of the storms.”
“Have you dreamed a plan, then?” Dalandaras asked.
“A small one,” I replied. “Aerik, you’ve nearly soaked your trousers. Dalandaras, show him where we’ve housed ourselves? Firien, I need a warriors opinion on the trees’ wood for bows.”
At one time, Aerik would have realized he was being had. This time, he did not protest. He followed Dalandaras without a comment except to mutter that he hoped the skies stayed clear.
“Wood?” Firien asked as I led him along the beach towards the nearest clump of trees.
“Of course not,” I replied.
“Then Aerik, true?”
I nodded.
Firien sighed. “He is not very well. The cold is takings its toll on him. I have been able to strengthen him some, but…”
“He is human,” I replied. “You’ve picked the wrong race to love.”
“I could say the same for you.”
“More than Dalandaras has made the mistake,” I said quietly. “Firien, the things that I need to do, for Tal Aesiri… I cannot drag Aerik back and forth across this place with winter approaching. It will kill him.”
“And I would rather he did not die sooner than he has to,” Firien replied. “What would you have me do?”
“We have to go to Tal Aesiri,” I said. “I have favors to ask of the spirits there. When we get there, I need you to keep him there.”
“You would not have me at your side?” Firien asked. “I am not dear to you, but I am a warrior.”
“You are dear to me, for caring for Aerik,” I replied, irritated. “I can see that you have not eaten near as well as he has.”
The elf shrugged, and we halted within the shadows of the branches. “It is little sacrifice.”
“Do you think you will be able to live among spirits and dreadwolves in that place?”
“If it means keeping him alive, yes.”
I nodded. “That is all I needed to know.”
We turned and headed back along the beach. We secured the boat against any rushing tide, and then found Dalandaras and Aerik where they had built a fire in the square. Freshly-skinned rabbits were roasting above it.
“The foulings?” I asked, though I could feel them well enough.
“Off to hunt,” Aerik replied, and handed a wooden plate to his companion. “Eat, Firi,”
The elf did. He managed to restrain himself, but he looked at the meat desperately all the same.”
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