Pyrn shifted his stance at the hearth and nodded in agreement.
Leathan smiled at Iyan. “There are other ways to slip past guards or otherwise distract them. We—you—create illusions, call up your powers, summon the wind or the animals of Arranon if we need them.” He stopped and glanced at Erynn. “There are only four guards during each shift. Those off duty return to Glaskra when not actually standing at their posts.” Leathan nodded. “I can see to it they remain in the city.”
Erynn frowned. “Yes, but why would the guards abandon Jaer? It must be their sworn duty to stand their ground, no matter what. And the closer they stay to him, the safer they are. We won’t risk hurting Jaer. I’m sure they’ll know that.”
“What if you frighten them?” Leathan asked Erynn. “You must have learned something from the ghosts of Deanaim. Would it be possible to scare the security team away?”
Erynn blew out a breath between pursed lips. “The Brusart—the ghosts of the traitors that roam the ancient fortress nearly killed Aven and me. They would have, had the guardians—the spirits that keep watch over the portal—not come along and stopped them.” She nodded, and glanced over at Pyrn. “Aven was scared enough to leave.”
Pyrn snorted. “Aven was thinking of your safety.” He shrugged. “And Jaer’s wrath, had anything happened to you.”
Leathan stood up from his spot on the edge of the desk and gestured to Iyan. “Go get the older children—Naren, Quin, and Wren. The transports will be here soon. Meet us out front.”
Iyan straightened and smiled. His face flushed with excitement, he hurried from the room.
Leathan turned to Pyrn and walked behind his desk. “Can you spare three Anbas? And yourself?”
Pyrn nodded. “We’ll do whatever’s necessary.”
“That would be getting Erynn into the room with Jaer.”
“And Nev,” Erynn added quickly, frowning.
“Yes. Of course. Erynn and Nev.” Leathan’s attention darted to Nev.
Nev subtly shook his head before turning his attention to the stone floor.
Erynn caught the discreet communication between them. A possibility she’d denied and kept at bay the last few huairs crept over her, taking control. She spun on Nev. Dread, frustration, and bitter anger collided inside her. In a small, controlled voice, she accused, “You think we’re too late, don’t you? You’ve thought that all along. You’re all just getting me in to see Jaer so I can say good-bye.”
Nev’s pretense collapsed. He appeared to shrink, his head bowed. “Erynn, we have to prepare for the worst. I can’t guarantee an antidote will work at this point. It’s been too long.”
Leathan leaned over his desk. “Even if we had tried as soon as you contacted Aven, it may have done no good. Shan controls Jaer’s life, or should I say his death now.”
Erynn squeezed her eyes tight. “No. I can’t—won’t accept failure. I know what I saw.” Her vision of the future, of Jaer and his child, his son, gave her hope where none should exist. Her faith in this was the driving force that kept her pressing forward. She glanced around the room, steadied by a stubborn determination. “Where’s Cale? I want to talk to Cale.”
Leathan answered her, “Cale is at the family farm. He’s not allowed to see Jaer but refuses to leave.”
Her chin up, voice even, Erynn stated, “I’m leaving—now. Come with me if you want, but I’m going to Jaer.”
Leathan came around the desk and hugged Erynn. He whispered, “Let’s go.”
Erynn followed Leathan through the door to the narrow spiral staircase. She climbed the rough, hand hewn stone steps, her gazed locked on Leathan. Quiet breathing and an irregular tapping of boot steps behind her sounded too close in the small space. She narrowed her exposure to the emotions of the others, visualizing a wide beam of light shrinking to a pinpoint radiance. At a strange impulse, almost like a superstitious ritual, she reached out and trailed her fingers over the ancient Comhra symbols carved into the curved wall, as if this connection with the past might somehow change an ominous portent. Her touch left tendrils of blue static that followed a brief moment before fading.
They strode quickly through the courtyard and into Glaskra’s government center. Leathan’s brisk pace continued over the gray marble floor, past etched glass doors framed in a rich red wood, to the main entrance.
By the time they made it to the front of the building, the additional Anbas waited on the walk next to the street. After a few moments, Iyan, Naren, Quin, and Wren trotted down the stone steps. Excitement cascaded off them in waves.
Erynn made eye contact with Pyrn and gestured toward the children. “Watch them. Please,” she mouthed.
Pyrn nodded, passing on the message to the other Anbas.
Two transports skidded to the curb. Doors slid open, and eleven people jumped in. They quickly strapped and buckled crossed belts across their shoulders. The vehicles lurched into motion, accelerating rapidly, fine gravel and mud spraying from under their wide, knobby tires.
Erynn gazed around at the youthful, eager expressions of the children—those like her. Her spirits rose, just a little.
Chapter 27
JAER’S PARENTS’ FARM WAS ABOUT sixty timnents from Glaskra, up a winding road flanked by ancient forests. They owned all the meadowlands on the mountains above and to the right of the city.
Before the transports reached the boundary of the property around the house and barns, they stopped. Pyrn determined that continuing in on foot would be best. After the vehicles were hidden under trees, they set off parallel to the packed-rock drive leading to the house, remaining in the dense forest for cover.
Sunshine filtered through lacy needle leaves. Aleuns flew from the nearest treetops, disappearing into distant branches. The scrambling and scuffling from the thick undergrowth below the boughs quieted, their inhabitants retreating. A dank, musty scent from their passage drifted on an icy breeze.
Erynn caught a glimpse through heavy limbs of the home Jaer had grown up in—the home he was dying in right now.
Leathan turned to Erynn as the large stone-and-log house came into view. “Erynn, we need clouds, rain, and a thick fog.”
Erynn closed her eyes and lifted her face to a clear blue sky. Chill air caressed her cheeks. Arranon’s weather had often responded to Erynn’s emotions. They needed thunder and rain to mask their passage, fog and clouds to conceal their presence, and darkness to aid in the enemy’s confusion. And they needed it now.
Zander’s words spoken in the high tower above the base flooded her memory. “You are the storm, Erynn.”
Erynn nodded. “I am the storm,” she whispered and glanced around at Iyan, Naren, Quin, and Wren. She motioned them forward, to stand at the front of their ragtag group and face the house with her. Eagerly, they stepped up, two on each side of Erynn. She took Iyan and Naren’s hands and they took Quin and Wren’s. The power of one now multiplied.
Thunder rumbled, echoing against the mountains.
Erynn searched above her, trying to locate the source, and realized the roar originated from around her . . . and the kids. Joined, their combined force intensified, crackling in the air with a formidable blue energy. Electricity snapped, buzzed, and popped, building into a blinding white spiral that arced into the sky, discharging high over their heads in a brilliant blast of lightning. An immediate crash of thunder shook the ground.
More. We need more.
Erynn envisioned Jaer—still, silent, between life and death—kept from those who loved him. Shan needed Jaer dead to feed her own twisted needs.
Anger flared and exploded from Erynn. A racing wind gusted and whistled through the trees, bending the sentinel giants, twisting thick limbs.
The sunlight dimmed as thick black clouds rolled across the once clear sky.
“How are you doing this, Erynn?” Naren’s shoulder-length blonde hair fluttered with a static charge in the rising wind. Her blue eyes wide, she watched the storm build.
“Not just me. We are doing this.” Eryn
n opened her awareness. She sensed no fear, only eager excitement flowing from the children—her brothers and sisters connected by the adversity of forbidden births—and through the hope of a living Arranon.
Erynn bit her lip, finding what she was about to say more difficult than she anticipated. “I never had the acceptance and sense of belonging you enjoy.” She looked at each of the children, starting with Iyan. “My dad did the best he could. He loved me above all else—kept me safe with secrets, lies, and denial. You’ve suffered, too, forced into hiding away from your families. We live with an uncertain future, in worlds where we don’t fit in, not matching the normal that society accepts.”
Sorrow filled Erynn. “We are different—outcasts, misunderstood, and confined as if we are criminals. And to the governments of our two worlds, that is what we are.”
Raindrops pattered against the canopy above them.
Erynn raised her face. “I think our strongest emotions—fear, anger, grief—may influence the natural balance of energy.” She tipped her head and watched individual drops fall in slow motion from a leaden sky. “Or maybe our pain touches Arranon and she empathizes.”
A sudden gust tousled Quin’s dark hair. His piercing blue eyes studied Erynn. His passion to learn what Erynn tried to teach was evident. “So Arranon validates our anger with lightning and thunder, our sorrow with rain, and fear with fog and clouds?”
Erynn nodded. Quin had a quick mind, grasping this difficult concept with youthful, unobstructed insight. “Yes.”
Wren, the youngest among them, tilted her face down, her toe kicking a mound of dirt. Short brown hair feathered over her cheek. She raised her gaze and stared up at the dark-gray clouds. Tears rolled from her pure-green eyes, to glisten on porcelain skin. “My father never accepted me. He refused to believe I was born and denies I’m alive.” She glanced at Erynn. “My mom is great, so is Leathan, but . . .”
Iyan sniffed, diverting his eyes to the ground. “My mom doesn’t want her new cheille and their normal children to know about me. She used to visit. Not anymore.”
Erynn squeezed Iyan’s hand. She could say nothing that would make things better, for Wren or Iyan. She took a deep breath, and the wind calmed, but building inside and out. “Let’s see if we can focus, channel our pain, our energy, our hopes and our fears.” Erynn’s tone turned ruthless. “Make this a storm Shan will never forget.”
As one, they stood straight and directed their gazes to the sky. Jolts of lightning flashed, thunder cracked, and clouds grew black, churning with a powerful foreboding.
Erynn concentrated on Dhoran—on everything he’d done to Nev, to Kira, and now to Vynn, innocent victims above and below. She envisioned the underworld realm and Tine’s family—his gentle spirit and his noble pursuit of truth and knowledge. The diverse life that made up all of Arranon would perish if Dhoran’s perverted desire for power succeeded.
Wind whipped at the forest, urging on the storm they created.
Cale lost his home, his base. After years of building a secret sanctuary for the protection of Arranon, Dhoran’s followers now claimed it as theirs.
Lightning blazed from the sky and the rain came in earnest, the drops fat and cold. Thunder roared and echoed through the mountains.
Jaer will see his son. He will have the chance to live and love.
Thick fingers of fog slid among the trees like snimhe, slithering across the ground, coiling around thick trunks, and raising phantom heads into the now dark day.
Erynn stepped onto the edge of the road. “Bring it on, Shan,” she shouted into the rain, wind, and thunder. “I am the storm—the storm of Arranon. And I am . . .” She glanced quickly around at the children and then back toward the house. “We are ready!”
Between the crashing of the thunder and the thick, clinging fog, they could have walked right up to the house and no one would have been the wiser. But they stayed to the woods, darting in and pressing up against an outside wall.
“Do we know which room Jaer is in?” Pyrn asked Leathan.
“His old room.” Leathan gazed into the raging storm, his face wet with rain, long gray hair dripping. “But I don’t know where in the house that is.”
“Follow me.” Erynn crept along the stone barrier. Boots squished in the mud. Her hand trailed the wall, fingers wet and cold. Sensations from within the log-and-stone walls of the large home bombarded her—sorrow the most prevalent, except for one powerful emotion of excitement and expectation—Shan.
The group followed Erynn with a silent resolve. Erynn opened a grateful heart to their unwavering dedication.
She ducked under a window and continued to the end of the wall. “Here,” she said, her voice a flat whisper. She rounded the corner to the next window and peeked in. Heavy deep-blue drapes covered the glass. Through a tiny gap on the side, she saw the foot of a bed. Someone lay in that bed, the rounding of legs and feet evident under blankets.
She watched a young man in civilian clothing walk across the room. A staser hung holstered in a harness over his shoulder. Her mouth dry, Erynn whispered harshly, wanting to be heard above the roar of wind and crash of thunder, “One guard. Staser in a shoulder holster.” She brushed sodden curls from her eyes.
Pyrn nodded. He ducked quickly to the other side of the window, adjusting himself to see through the side of the curtain. He watched for a moment and then glanced at the others. He held up two fingers and pointed toward the corner. “Two more. Shoulder holsters,” he mouthed and shrugged.
Jess, one of the other three Anbas, slid up to stand at Erynn’s back, her dark eyes wide and bright. “The fourth is probably outside the door, in the hall.”
A bolt of lightning split the darkness that was now the sky. The air cracked with an instant crash of thunder, the scent of ozone heavy in the air. The lights inside and around the house went out with a pop. A shout from the room caused them all to duck from sight and press against the cold, wet, stone wall.
Erynn’s heart hammered in her chest. Sweat rolled down the hollow of her back despite the icy wind and soaking rain.
“We won’t need the ruse of spirits or ghosts. I say we just storm the house and push our way into the room.” Pyrn’s jaw clenched, and his hand grasped the hilt of the dygaer. “We can handle them.” He stared at Erynn. “I promise—no one will get hurt.”
Jess nodded her agreement.
“I agree. No ghosts.” Erynn stood up and stepped past the window. “But I’m going into Jaer’s room. Alone. I want to talk to Shan. You can follow me to the door, but hang back unless I call you. Stay close, Nev.” She took a brief moment, making eye contact with each of the children and stopping on Iyan. Erynn exhaled in a shaking rush. “Trust me. If I need help . . . I’ll yell.”
Nev stepped forward. His concern blasted her. “Erynn—”
Pyrn stopped him with a powerful hand across his chest. “This is how it should be. Erynn can do this.” He nodded, glancing around, making sure to include the kids. “And we’ll be right behind her.”
The dripping, windblown, disheveled group pushed away from the wall and followed Erynn up to the back door under a long, wide, covered porch.
Erynn tapped the control and the door glided open.
A woman sat at a table, a steaming mug cradled in her hands. A rich, herbal scent drifted from the cup. She turned, startled at Erynn’s entrance into the warm kitchen. She had black hair streaked with silver, a tan complexion blotchy from high emotion, and Jaer’s dark, smoldering eyes puffy and red from crying.
His mother.
Erynn stood still, water from her coat and hood dripping on the polished stone floor. She took a deep breath, straightened, and calmed the quaver in her voice. “I’m here to see Jaer.”
Jaer’s mom set the cup on the table in front of her and pushed slowly out of the chair. She appeared only slightly taller than Erynn, her stocky frame strong from years of difficult farm work. She glanced to her right into a larger great room and shook her head.
; Erynn thought she was about to scream, to alert the guards that an intruder was in the house. Erynn tiptoed quickly over to her. “Please,” she pleaded, her voice cracking. A tear slipped down her scarred cheek. She brushed the back of her hand across her face and stared into those familiar dark eyes. “They’ll know we’re here soon enough. Please don’t yell out to them. I’m not here to hurt you or Jaer.”
Jaer’s mom tried to smile. Her lips turned down instead.
Sensations pounded Erynn—fear, anger, sorrow—all fighting for control. Erynn sensed a sudden change, though. Hope now mingled with despair.
“I know who you are,” she whispered. Fresh tears tracked down her face. “You’re Erynn. I would know you anywhere. Jaer loves you so much. I never thought my boy would find love after . . . her.” She spat out the last as if it were something rotten in her mouth. “You’re all he ever talked about. I feel as if I know you already.” She reached out and took Erynn’s hand in her warm, trembling fingers. “They won’t let you in. Shan will forbid you to see Jaer.”
Erynn smiled with no humor and removed her dripping jacket, laying it over a chair next to the hearth in the kitchen. “They can’t stop me . . . ma’am. And Shan . . .” Erynn’s nostrils flared. “Let me deal with her.”
“Simi. I’m Simi. Jaer’s . . . mom.” Her delicate features crumbled and she ducked her head, shoulders shaking. “I shouldn’t outlive my children. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.”
Heartache slammed into Erynn, forcing her to narrow her exposure or risk falling into the same emotional pit.
Simi pulled herself together and looked into Erynn’s eyes. “Aven and Tam just got back with Rias a few timnents ago. They’re in with Jaer now.” Simi put her hand to her mouth. “Now that the whole family is here, I’m afraid Shan is going to do something . . . something to hurry my boy’s death.”
Erynn reached out quickly and squeezed Simi’s hand, just as hastily releasing her. Resolve strengthened Erynn. Wild currents snapped in the air. “Shan will not touch Jaer.” Erynn’s eyes narrowed, her tone severe.
Storm of Arranon Allies and Enemies Page 24