"Who knows?" Grace said. "There was talk that maybe he would return to the Ever After and wage war there in an attempt to cast out the Goddess as she had done to him."
Jovian shivered.
"But they’re just dreams, right?" Cianna asked. "Nothing more?"
"We have been told, lately, that our dreams hold power," Angelica said, coming back to sit on her sofa. "We are anakim. Some people think that allows us to see things that haven't yet happened."
"Ah," Cianna said, leaning back again. "Foresight."
"This can't be good," Jovian said, not taking this as lightly as everyone else was.
"Certainly not," Angelica said.
"I refuse to believe it means a lot until we examine the facts more." Grace picked her pipe back up and puffed it back to life. "Let's discuss this with everyone else, and see what they think."
"I agree," Cianna said, cutting off any arguments Angelica and Jovian could give. "Annbell wants to have a meeting when Sara is well enough. I think we should discuss it more then."
Sara pushed herself up higher in the bed and wrinkled her nose at the stench heavy in the air. She sniffed inquisitively, realized the smell was coming from her, and made a noise deep in her throat.
A blond boy of about seventeen stirred beside the bed, coming awake in a very uncomfortable chair. Sara knew things about this boy; though she had never met him before, he was certainly no stranger to her. In fact, she felt like he was a part of her, an extension of sorts, but that was absurd. After a moment of scanning her body, she realized she was tethered to him by a tendril of magenta wyrd.
As the question of who the boy was formed in her mind, she automatically knew, as if it had been her name all along: Astanel Lusmore.
"Strange," Sara said, struggling to push herself higher on the pillows.
Astanel rose and came to her side, helping her shuffle higher. With a groan of pain, she settled back on the down pillows.
"Thank you," she croaked, her voice dry. Sara reached for the water at the edge of the bedside stand, and stopped short. She pulled her wrinkled hand back and looked at the wasted fingers. The flesh sagged off her bones as if she were an old lady, not a sorceress frozen in time at the age of twenty-one. With shaky hands she reached for her face, and when she felt the cold, waxy wrinkles on her cheeks, her hands spasmed away.
Sara closed her eyes against the tears of fear that rushed to the surface. What did it mean? I've aged, she thought. But how? How did she age? She’d been fine before — the last she knew she still looked the same, just weaker.
A presence grew in the room, a form she recognized. At its coming, a sharp pain arose in her stomach and was mirrored by an equally sharp one in her head. Sara groaned and opened her eyes to see an evanescent shadow in the corner. When she tried to look straight at it, the shadow skirted away, as if it didn't want to be seen.
"Would you like a mirror?" the boy asked in a soft voice, as if he was afraid of breaking some reverent silence.
"No," Sara shook her head. "Just tell me, how old do I look?"
Astanel frowned, and studied her face. "Not old, just . . . sick."
Sara held her hand up before her face again, and now that he mentioned it, her skin didn't look so much old as it looked like she had been deprived of nourishment. She pulled back the covers, and lifted her gown.
Astanel cleared his throat and looked away. Through the tether of wyrd, she could feel his embarrassment.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, but didn't stop. She pulled her gown up and looked at her body underneath. Sure enough, she wasn't old, just very thin and wasted-looking. With a sigh Sara pushed her dressing gown back in place and pulled the heavy covers back up over her frame, feeling the weight of them pressing against her tired bones, sinking her further into the feather bed.
"How long have I been out?" Sara asked. She ignored the pain in her stomach, and the shadowed figure in the corner that seemed to cause it.
Astanel shrugged. "Mag should be here in a little bit; she comes every couple hours to check on you."
"What happened?" Sara asked insistently, even though Astanel seemed reluctant to answer. The shadow in the corner pulsed with the question, and then settled once more. Her stomach roiled painfully, drawing a moan from her throat. When Astanel looked at her, she waved a hand as if to say she was fine. Sara didn't believe she was, but the boy shouldn't worry about this. He was obviously too young to have gone through his trials yet. Matters of wyrding shouldn't be his concern yet, since he had no power to help. Even if he was helping right now with the tether connected to her, that was likely the work of a far more powerful sorcerer. She doubted he was able to read the wyrded words that comprised the entry in the tome of sorcery.
"Something about Wyrders’ Bane, whatever that is, and poisoned tea. Mag had to do a wyrd transfusion on you."
Sara nodded and closed her eyes. Wyrd transfusions weren't easy things to do, and she had no experience with performing one herself. Mag was be the only other person Sara could think of in the keep who would be strong enough to perform it. There were many other sorcerers at hand, but none of them that Sara thought could pull off the intricacies of a wyrd transfusion. She felt as though she’d started to drift off when Astanel shifted in his chair and brought her attention back to the present.
Sara's eyes studied the low flames of the fireplace. It was getting cold in the room, the panes of the window frosting up, fogging, letting her know the temperature outside was much colder than it was inside. She studied the falling snow for a time. It always surprised her that they could get such heavy snows and not be completely snowed in up to the higher peak of the keep.
"Would you mind stoking the fire?" Sara asked, her voice still weak.
Astanel stood and went to the fire. Sara reached for her glass of water. With weak hands she clasped the small glass and tried to draw it to her mouth, but no sooner had she lifted it from the stand than it tumbled out of her hands and smashed in a wash of water and glass across the granite floor.
Astanel jumped. "Are you alright?" he asked, and then realized what had happened. "I have some broth there for you if you’d like some?"
Sara nodded. "Fire first," she told him, and lay back in the bed.
The wood was stacked in the corner, nearest the shadow. Sara knew she couldn't watch the shadow directly, so she observed it out of the corner of her eye. When Astanel went to gather some wood, the shadow shifted, but didn't move. When the boy drew close, it almost felt to her wyrd like the shadow was feeling the boy's energy, like it was sampling him.
Astanel stepped back, gripping his stomach. The shadow swelled, and then fell still again, and whatever Astanel had felt in his stomach seemed to abate. He gathered the wood and started stacking it in the fireplace.
"What was that?" Sara asked. "Are you sick?"
"No Guardian, just a pain. It's gone now," he told her, crouching beside the hearth, waiting for the wood to catch.
When the fire was crackling loudly, and Sara desired nothing more than to fall asleep watching it, Astanel gathered the broth from the table against the wall and brought it to her. He placed the cold bowl to her lips and tilted it slightly. Sara took a deep drink.
The shadow flickered. Sara ignored it and the pain it brought to her midsection.
Pork broth. She closed her eyes with a moan, and drank deeply and hungrily. Sara’d had no idea how hungry she really was until the first bit of broth splashed in her empty stomach and her digestion growled to life.
As if on cue, the door opened just as the last bit of broth crossed her lips. Mag stepped in, her short dark hair looking frazzled, the red robes of her station gaping open in the front, showing her black dress underneath.
"You're awake!" Mag said, closing the door behind her.
"And it looks like Annbell has been doing some promoting since I was out," Sara said, and then smiled. "That office looks good on you, but with the upcoming skirmish, you might want to lose the red. It makes you stand out too much."
Mag smiled and shrugged out of the robe, folding it over the end of the bed. She went to Sara and checked her over. Sara could feel Mag's wyrd scanning through her body.
"All better," Mag said.
"You could have fooled me," Sara remarked.
"You will get back to full health. At least that corrupt wyrd is gone," Mag said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "And it looks like your link to the well has been re-established." There was relief in Mag's eyes.
"There was a question it wouldn't?" Sara asked.
"The book never said," Mag told her. The other sorceress placed her hand over Sara's heart and pinched the air there. There was a moment where Sara felt her breath hitch and her heart stutter, and then it was over. Mag pulled her fingers away and secured the magenta tether back to the lemniscate on the back of Astanel’s neck.
Sara could no longer feel the boy's presence beside her mind.
"What happened?" Sara asked.
"Astanel, would you give us a moment?" Mag asked. The boy nodded and left. After the door thumped shut, Mag continued. "Van was poisoning you with fragments of Wyrders’ Bane in your tea. I found out the day you went under, and figured out where he was getting his supply."
"You took care of it?" Sara asked.
Mag nodded. "I killed the dwarf supplying it, one they called the Looker. Van is in the dungeons, and you are feeling better."
"The Looker." Sara nodded approvingly. "That must have dealt them a heavy blow."
"She is someone of note among them?" Mag sat on the edge of the bed.
"They’re counselors to the chief of each tribe. Only one per tribe — if there are more born with the powers, they are put to death, unless the current Looker is nearing death. Then she will train the new one before she passes on."
"Why would they kill them off?" Mag wondered.
"Because they have wyrd," Sara told her. "It isn't anything the dwarves would admit, but the Lookers have wyrd."
"Then won't they be affected by Wyrders’ Bane?" Mag wondered.
Sara shrugged. "Maybe there's a way around it. But Wyrders’ Bane is still here," Sara said. She touched Mag’s pale hand. "You aren't looking so well yourself.'
"It's just tiredness," Mag said. Sara sent her awareness to the shadow in the room, but it was oddly still.
"And you are the only one feeling it?" Sara asked. "Anything else happening? Maybe you would like to tell me about the shadow in the corner?"
Mag's hands shook slightly, and she cast a glance over her shoulder where Sara knew the shadow stood, observing them.
"There is that," she whispered. "I don't know what it is."
"But you feel the pain it brings? The sickness?" Sara asked, trying to study the shadow out of the corner of her eye, but now that they were talking about it, it wavered like smoke, both there and not there at the same time.
"What is it?" Mag clasped Sara's cold hands, trying to rub warmth back into them.
Sara shook her head. "I have no clue yet, but I suspect it’s an apparition of what afflicted me."
"The stone?" Mag asked.
"The power behind the stone."
Mag set Sara's hand down and looked into her eyes. "An egrigor?"
"I believe so," Sara told her.
"Then we should fight it."
"How can we fight an egrigor that corrupts our wyrd when it touches it?" Sara asked.
"There has to be a way," Mag mused.
The shadow stirred in the corner.
"Maybe we should discuss it when it isn't around."
Mag nodded. "I will think on it."
"Just remember, I think if we touch it with our wyrd, it can harm us."
"Why did it harm you before without touching your wyrd?" Mag wondered.
"It was inside me, who knows what it was doing in there."
"And Cianna — you said she told you she was getting sick just by being within range of the rock," Mag pressed.
Sara shrugged. "Maybe there is no longer any stone? Maybe it was all shaved away to give to me."
"Do you think they would use all of it on you?" Mag asked.
"No, I think that would be a big waste. I think they were testing out a theory, and now. . ." Sara didn't know what would come after that.
"Now they’re putting a plan into action?" Mag asked.
"Yes, but what? Is the shadow here because of me? Is that the wyrd you drained off from me?" Sara asked.
"Egrigors aren't normally parasitic." Mag worried the edge of her lip in thought.
"Not usually, but that doesn't mean they can't be."
Mag shook her head. "What I drained off from you went directly into the earth. It can't be the corruption from you. I’ll have to research it."
"There’s enough on your plate; get another wyrder to compile information. It doesn't take talent to research, just the ability to read."
Mag laughed at that. "Point taken."
Sara grabbed both of her hands. "I can't thank you enough for what you've done for the Realm of Earth. We will get through this. We will beat this. Now I should rest up, and think on the problem at hand."
"Don't try anything, you’re much too weak for that. We don't want you over-extending yourself and burning out your connection to the Well of Wyrding," Mag warned.
"Yes, Mother," Sara joked.
Mag stood and shrugged into the red velvet robe, letting the weight settle around her. "I’ll get something else so I can't be seen from the battlements, but it’s drafty in these halls," she explained.
"Something all the other sorcerers are wearing. Blend in," Sara told her.
"They likely couldn't kill me," Mag said. "They’d have to get close to do that."
"But being peppered with arrows wouldn't make for a fun day," Sara countered.
Mag nodded. "I also had the Orb of Aldaras removed from your office."
"Why?" Sara asked, confused.
"When I came in one day, you were sitting before it, communing with it, and inside, I saw the Beast."
Sara's blood ran cold. "The Beast?" she whispered.
"In his true form." Mag told her, cinching the robe about her waist, showing very little of the heavy black dress underneath.
"Not as the man?"
"No. But you should rest now. Annbell wants to call a meeting when you’re well enough to attend," Mag told her.
"I'm feeling better, really. But they should gather in my office when we have it, there's no telling when I’ll be well enough to leave this floor."
Mag nodded. "Rest for now. We’ll get things set up and I’ll let you know."
She opened the door to leave.
"Mag?" Sara asked, nestling down in the bed. The shadow was no longer in attendance. Maybe he was a messenger? Mag turned back to her Guardian. "If possible, I’d like to know more about the stone at the meeting."
"No pressure?" Mag asked, and smiled.
"No pressure." Sara agreed.
Root Commander Krouner of the wyrders’ battalion examined the contents of his tin cup in the feeble light of a flickering lamp in the sorcerers’ barracks. Always settlement, he thought. Why can't I get clean water?
He drained his cup and thumped it down on the scarred tabletop. He tossed a black jacket over his shoulders, a red lemniscate with three lines under it marking his leadership of the wyrders’ battalion. The wooden planks creaked under his heavy boots. Battle wyrders, the soldiers that made up his battalion, huddled in groups around fire pits in the common room, trying to keep warm while catching up. The wyrders’ battalion was always a strange one; many of the soldiers knew one another from times past, sometimes having been acquaintances for centuries. Whereas other soldiers had to mingle and get to know one another almost every time ground defense was called, wyrders were so long-lived they often knew one another already, creating a brotherhood that was much tighter than other battalions.
Krouner pushed through the door and out into the bright light of the winter morning. Snow fell in soft flakes around the courtyard of
gathered barracks.
Russel wasn't too far away, dealing with the horses and overseeing the general upkeep of the paths between buildings.
"Sapling Kensley," Krouner barked, fastening his black jacket against the cold of the day. His stomach twinged painfully, but he muscled through it.
"Yes, Root Commander?" Russel said, coming to attention before Krouner.
"Where in the realms do you get our water from?" he asked, pulling the dark-haired man between two of the barracks, which sat in a circle around the central courtyard.
"Where I was told to, from the community well at the top of that rise," Russel pointed off in the distance, where drinkable water was able to be gathered for the houses.
"Do you shovel dirt into the buckets before you bring it back?"
Russel shook his head.
"Do you clean them before putting water in?"
Russel nodded. "Each time, sir."
"Then how can you manage to get so much silt in the water that I have to clean between my teeth after each cup?"
"I don't know, sir. I’ll do better next time, sir." Russel said.
Krouner grunted. "Go back to what you were doing," he told him.
Russel saluted, and went back to overseeing the horses.
As the brightness of the sun burned across the lands of the Shadow Realm, Joya covered her eyes. She had resided in the shadowy land so long that her eyes weren’t used to the sunlight, and it nearly blinded her.
Slowly she cracked her eyes open and peered out of her tower window. The scenery outside had changed. No longer was Joya looking out at the wasted land outside her tower, but instead over the edge of a cliff, at a sea of winged creatures below.
Cianna stepped up next to her from where she stood beside the window.
“What’s that?” her cousin asked, pointing off to the horizon.
Joya shook her head. She saw it too: the darkening clouds, with the bloom of light before them, like some prophecy coming to them in a rush of noise and light from the twisting clouds of an approaching storm.
The light flashed again, and the two raven-haired girls screamed out in pain as their backs lurched and bones split, moving to the side, making way for something larger.
On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) Page 3