The Legend of Oescienne--The Reckoning (Book Five)

by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson

  “My husband speaks the truth. We have seen no activity in the north, and hornets’ nests are best left undisturbed. However, I am unwilling to ignore my intuition. If hornets’ nests are left too long, they only grow larger until they encroach upon a farmer’s home. And when it comes time to destroy the nest, the job grows even more deadly. You, Kehllor of Felldreim, have seen evidence of the Tyrant’s movements, have you not?”

  Phaaron Amonen drew in a breath to speak, but his wife’s hand tightened on his shoulder and he settled back against his throne looking like a petulant child.

  Mouth suddenly parched, Kehllor nodded. “I have not only seen their activity, but I can tell you it has been focused on locating and capturing the human girl promised by the prophecy.”

  The queen’s head tilted at this. “I have heard no one speak of the prophecy in many years. Why do the Tyrant’s men look now for the child?”

  Kehllor let his eyes drop for a moment. Jahrra’s identity had been kept secret for so long, it almost pained him to consider telling others about her. But now was the time for action. Jahrra’s existence was no longer as secret as it once had been, and she and Jaax were, at this very moment, heading east to confront the Crimson King. That destiny an ancient prophecy foretold. This was why he had traveled here to begin with. To seek the help of a people others might overlook. If that meant sharing what he knew about Jahrra and her mission, then so be it. Kehllor shifted so he stood as respectfully as he could.

  “They look, your highness, because the promised human child of the prophecy has been born, nearly twenty years past. And she is now on her way to confront the greatest enemy Ethoes has ever known.”

  The queen’s eyes widened and the crowd, so far able to contain their words, burst into a flurry of chattering. The Phaaron tried to get his subjects to settle down, but the more he snarled at them, the more agitated they became. Only when a trio of female Nephaari, dressed in flowing robes of deep blue, their heads and faces covered with the same, sinuous fabric, approached the throne did the chaotic conversation settle down. The females moved around Kehllor, not even bothering to look at him, and, in unison, knelt before their Phaaron and Phaara.

  “Speak, priestesses,” Batheda commanded.

  The females lifted their heads, then drew their hands up to remove the fabric covering their muzzles.

  “As you have commanded, my Phaara,” one of them recited in a dulcet tone, “we have been beseeching the gods all morning.”

  Batheda arched a brow. “And?” she prompted.

  The priestess who had spoken flicked concerned eyes onto the female to her right. “And Nephthys has experienced a vision.”

  The priestess called Nephthys, who kept her gaze trained at the feet of her sovereigns, shuddered slightly.

  “And what did you see, priestess?” Amonen demanded.

  Nephthys drew in a shuddering breath, barely getting out her next words, “The sky lizard must be heeded, my Phaaron, my Phaara, for I have seen the destruction of our world. It will not happen swiftly as you say, but if we do not aid him, if we do not fight against the Tyrant King now, if we do not join the other free people of Ethoes, all will perish beneath his might.”

  When she lifted her eyes, tears gathered in their corners, falling free and leaving a dark track through the tawny fur of her cheek.

  “If we do nothing, his disease will spread and reach our borders, and by then, his armies will be so large, they will slaughter us all and grind our great city to ash.”

  The Phaaron turned a grim expression onto his wife, but it was she who spoke, Phaara Batheda who flicked shrewd eyes to Kehllor’s and said, her voice loud enough for all to hear, “We will join you then, Kehllor of Felldreim. We will aid the Coalition of Ethoes in their fight against the Tyrant King of the north.”

  A great, bellowing cheer rang out over the gathering, both male and female Nephaari baring their teeth and pinning their ears flat against their skulls, for although they farmed the land and harvested food from the rich delta valley, they were predators, warriors at heart.

  The blast of jackal howls and yips hit Kehllor with the force of a terrible storm, but it wasn’t fear that spiked his heart. Oh no. As the Nephaari snarled and sang out their battle cry, he released a great breath, adrenaline, relief, and a leg-weakening pulse of hope coursed through his veins. Jahrra and Jaax would not be alone. The Coalition would not have to go up against the greatest threat to their world sorely outnumbered. His journey south had not been in vain.

  “We are coming, Jahrra, Jaax,” he breathed, as the Phaaron and Phaara gathered their generals together to start planning for war.

  A flash of the dreams he’d been having, those strange, misplaced images, flickered through his mind. A bleak, frozen plain … broken, burned bodies littering the ground … a hopeless march upon a dark fortress perched atop a black mountain… Kehllor shoved them violently aside. Whatever those nightmarish fragments of memory were, they were in the past, an image of a battle lost. They would not lose this one, not this time. He would not allow it.

  “We will come,” he said again, to no one in particular, “and in the end, we will wipe Ethoes clean of the Tyrant’s taint, once and for all.”

  -Chapter Eleven-

  Dhonoara Castle

  Three days after Denaeh’s unexpected arrival, Jahrra and her companions reached the western most point of the South Parting Range. White-capped mountains flanked them on two sides now with the sea to their left and more forested, frosted peaks stretching far behind them.

  “It will take us another three days to find the headwaters of the Chloress River,” Ellyesce said, barely giving the party five minutes to rest before turning Gliriant in the direction of a poorly maintained road. “From there we can follow it into Upper Dhonoara Canyon.”

  Denaeh, who had spent both her days and nights in reflective silence, stared at the elf’s back from beneath her hood. It had been a trying journey since she joined them, not for the danger on the road - they had met none - but the tension stretching between herself and the Magehn was taut enough to launch an arrow.

  Jahrra sat atop Phrym, Dervit in front of her, opting to ride between the two magic-wielders for the remainder of their trip. It had been for the best. Ellyesce had not shifted even an inch from his frosty demeanor towards Denaeh, as Jahrra had hoped, and the two of them had barely exchanged two words since Jahrra had stood her ground and insisted the Mystic come along. If she was being honest with herself, Jahrra was still reeling from the onslaught of information she’d learned in the past week or so.

  Ellyesce, the last Magehn of the Tanaan king, and Denaeh, not only a Mystic but the mother of the Crimson King. And the two of them had been very close before Denaeh left to be queen of Ghorium. Jahrra bit her lip and dropped her eyes. She could understand Ellyesce’s bitterness. What would she do, after all, if Keiron showed up out of the blue, demanding he was sorry and that he wished to make amends and right the wrong he had done?

  The very thought of the handsome young elf twisted her heart and stirred up her anger. She had cared about him, too, and he had betrayed her in the worst way. From what she could gather, Denaeh’s only sin was falling in love with another, but to someone who had committed their entire heart to her, as Jahrra now understood Ellyesce had, it would have been, and still remained, a smarting wound.

  Ellyesce called a halt early that night, and they camped amongst a mature copse of aspen and cottonwoods, their gently rustling leaves lulling Jahrra into a restless sleep. The next morning, the group rose and followed the same road from the day before. Jahrra often wondered if Ellyesce was trying desperately to put as much space between him and Denaeh as possible, as if by doing so would make her fade into nothing but memory once more. The thought saddened Jahrra and she tried to focus on something else, like convincing her own heart that the sooner they arrived in Dhonoara, the sooner she’d see Jaax again. That fact was enough to ease her soul for the next several hours.

  Another ear
ly night and another swift start to the morning, and Jahrra was more than ready to find the accursed river through the valley if only to break the suffocating silence and unease pressing down upon everyone. In the end, they never reached the headwaters of the Chloress River. Just after Ellyesce announced to everyone that the river’s source was only a few mountain ridges from where they stood, their small traveling party was set upon by a troop of elvin soldiers guarding the outer borders of Dhonoara. One minute, Jahrra was admiring the vast beauty of the mountains waking to spring, a gentle breeze blowing back loose tendrils of hair and rustling through the new green leaves of aspen and birch, when in the next minute Ellyesce pulled Gliriant to a sudden stop.

  He whipped his head around and gave Jahrra a hard glance. Immediately, she tensed in the saddle, Dervit letting out a small squeak in front of her. Before she could ask what had caused the abrupt stop, ten cloaked figures on horseback emerged from the trees surrounding them.

  Jahrra’s eyes went wide, and her grip on Phrym’s reins tightened. There hadn’t been enough cover growing between the trees to hide them. They must have used sorcery. Fear spiked Jahrra’s heart. The only people to use sorcery that she knew of, besides Denaeh and Ellyesce, were the mages of Cierryon. Yet, these riders wore cloaks of soft moss green, not red and black.

  Before Jahrra could ponder it much longer, all ten figures drew blades from sheaths hanging at their hips. Their horses, no, not horses, semequins, didn’t so much as twitch an ear.

  “Who are you that you dare to pass through the realm of Dhonoara without a request?”

  The voice was cold, but not cruel, and the speaker drew up a hand to pull back the cowl of his cloak.

  Bright silver eyes shone from a beautiful, pale face. High cheek bones, a straight nose, long, fawn brown hair … But it was his ears that finally gave Jahrra reason to relax. Tapered at the tips, just like Ellyesce’s. Elves. Dhonoaran elves. Their allies.

  “Have you fallen so out of favor with our king, Atryan, that he has demoted you to border duty now?”

  The silver-eyed elf snapped his attention to Ellyesce, gaze narrowed. In the next breath, those same eyes flashed wide, his fair complexion going stark white as shock took hold.

  “Ellyesce?! Ethoes above! I thought you long gone from this world, old friend.”

  Cautious joy lit his face now, and the other elves surrounding him resheathed their weapons, the tension filling up the small glade diminishing.

  “I was gone, but duty called me back,” was Ellyesce’s dry reply.

  The leader of the guard, Atryan, stretched to peer around Ellyesce.

  “And is this the human girl, then? Jahrra of Oescienne?”

  Ellyesce glanced quickly over his shoulder, then back at Atryan.

  “Someone has told you of our arrival?”

  The handsome, pale-eyed elf nodded, grinning.

  Jahrra snapped to attention. Jaax. He must be in Dhonoara. Safe. The fact that he had arrived before them, as had been the case in Nimbronia, sent shivers of unease creeping up her spine. The final leg of their journey would not end the way it had at the base of the City in the Clouds. They would not be surprised by the Tyrant’s men this time. They couldn’t be.

  “Aye,” Atryan continued, “the Tanaan dragon Raejaaxorix arrived two days ago and insisted we double our numbers along the border to look out for you.” The Dhonoaran elf gave a soft snort followed by a smirk. “He threatened to search the mountains himself if King Vandrian didn’t comply, but the last thing we need is a Tanaan dragon gracing the skies. Cierryon’s spies are thick in these parts, and we’d have an army of Morli beasts bearing down on us before we could even think about battle strategies.”

  “Then, I am glad to hear his majesty still has some sense left in him, even after all these centuries.”

  Ellyesce shook his head and gave a small smile as he turned Gliriant slightly off the path. “Ah, I am being rude. Allow me to make formal introductions. As you have guessed, this is Jahrra of Oescienne, and a friend we met along the way, Dervit of Felldreim.”

  The limbit went still, eyes wide as he took in the congregation of elves. Fortunately, he had retained enough sense to remove his hat and sketch an awkward bow from the saddle.

  When Ellyesce flicked his eyes to Denaeh, however, the warm smile on his face faded, pale green eyes going cold. Jahrra hadn’t noticed before, what with the Mystic riding behind her, but Denaeh hadn’t made a sound since the elves surrounded them. Turning atop Phrym, Jahrra was surprised to find her friend leaning forward in the saddle, shoulders hunched, hood falling low over her face. As if Denaeh had adopted her crone form since they last stopped.

  The silence stretched on, until finally a sigh left Denaeh’s throat, and she sat up straight, lifting a hand to draw the hood from her head. Brilliant red hair tumbled free, framing a pale face. Her topaz eyes shone with emotion, and her mouth cut a hard line above her chin.

  A few gasps broke free from the Dhonoaran elves, some of them angry, but all of them shocked. When Jahrra risked a glance at Atryan, she found the elf’s eyes had gone as hard as the granite crags rising above them, his expression now dangerous.

  “You bring a betrayer into our midst?” he hissed, baring straight, white teeth. “And she rides alongside you, unbound?”

  Steel hissed free of leather scabbards, the friendly atmosphere turning menacing in the blink of an eye.

  “I can’t believe you, of all people, Ellyesce, would allow the Mystic Archedenaeh to breathe in your presence.”

  “Believe me, Atryan, the Mystic is not traveling with us by my choice.”

  “I insisted she come with us,” Jahrra interjected.

  Several pairs of elvin eyes fell upon her, and Jahrra almost squirmed beneath their weight. Regardless, she held Atryan’s gaze, refusing to look away.

  “I don’t know what Denaeh has done to deserve your ire,” she stated, addressing the entire gathering of elves, “but her part in this isn’t over. Not by far. You have my word, she will cause no harm in Dhonoara.”

  Jahrra wouldn’t share the tale the Mystic had told them. That was her friend’s story to tell. But she did turn to give Denaeh a hard look. I have placed my honor upon your future actions, she thought as she held her friend’s topaz gaze. Do not make me regret it.

  Denaeh gave a small bob of her head, acknowledging she understood Jahrra’s unvoiced comment.

  It was Ellyesce who spoke next. “If I can set aside my grievances to tolerate the Mystic, then surely you can as well, Atryan. Jahrra was sent to us by Ethoes herself, and if her instincts have guided her in this decision, then who are we to question it, as much as it might grate against our own judgment?”

  Jahrra blinked in surprise. Distant and cold as Ellyesce had been the past several days, she didn’t expect his support, begrudging as it may be.

  Atryan finally turned to his brethren. “Put your weapons away. We will bring them with us, but if the Mystic tries anything, she is to be slain on the spot.”

  He arched a pale brown brow in Jahrra’s general direction. “Fair enough?”

  Jahrra nodded once, but said no more.

  “Very well. We’ll escort you to Dhonoara Castle. We should arrive by late afternoon if we are swift about it.”

  Atryan turned his semequin around and barked out orders in an unfamiliar language. He proceeded to lead them out of the narrow vale, followed by two of his warriors, then Ellyesce, Jahrra, and Denaeh on Rumble. The road was wide, despite the altitude, and four more elves, two on either side of them, flanked Jahrra and her friends. The rest trailed behind them. Although their weapons were tucked safely away, they sat alert in the saddle, ready to pull steel at a moment’s notice.

  Jahrra itched to glance back at Denaeh, but she didn’t dare. The woman hadn’t said a word during the entire encounter with the elves. A guilty conscience, or a healthy sense of self-preservation? She would have to find out later when she got a chance to speak with Denaeh alone. It was strange seeing the
woman in such a subdued state. For as long as Jahrra had known the Mystic, she had always been sharp, constantly calculating. Holding her own against all adversaries. These past few days traveling with Ellyesce, however, had changed her demeanor completely.

  Even Dervit, his ears usually twitching back and forth at the many sounds this high in the mountains, sat like a statue. Jahrra turned her thoughts to her small friend, wondering how he was taking all these sudden changes and divulgences. He had been so quiet, and although there was plenty of time on the trail to talk, she had never been able to find those spare minutes to speak with him.

  Trapped in his own head, trying to puzzle everything out like the rest of us, most likely, she grumbled to herself. And so, Jahrra let her own scattered thoughts disperse to the far corners of her mind. Instead of allowing worry to consume her, she continued to look for the bright spots of spring dotting the South Parting Range as they moved ever eastward, their elvin escort alert for any signs of danger.

  Eventually, the road curved wide, a vast open patch of sky opening to their right. Atryan and the two elves with him stopped ahead of the bend, waiting for the others. When Jahrra and Phrym joined them, she noticed the reason for their abrupt halt. Far below, a wide, verdant valley spread like a great shelf of land pressed between sheer mountain cliffs on either side. A serpentine river, the first few miles of the Chloress, wound lazily through the center of the vale, rushing down the mountainside just below them. Across from their current point, a low, broad hill rose above the valley. Elaborate buildings constructed of the same, multi-colored stone of the valley walls, so well-polished it gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight, occupied the high point like spires and blocks of intricately cut crystal. And centered amidst all those structures was a castle, its terraces and turrets piling high into the sky.

  Jahrra let out a small gasp, unsure if this was reality or a dream.

  “Dhonoara Castle,” Ellyesce said softly from beside her. “King Vandrian’s seat of power.”