Fallen Warrior (Fallen Trilogy book 3)

by Williams, Tess

  "Why so rarely? It's your birthright, isn't it? Why not use it all the time?"

  "Because I shouldn't like to," she replied, without explanation.

  "But,"

  "Cole, didn't you ever stop something for the sake of the person you loved?" she interrupted.

  Luffie had shifted at her sudden rise in tone. Now, I was really confused, on a few levels. Maybe my not answering let her on to this.

  "You've said you lost someone to Akadia, it was a woman, wasn't it? Didn't you ever stop doing something for her sake?"

  "Of course," I answered automatically. I couldn't help but feeling it was intentional she mention this now, after what had happened, like she was trying to distance me from her. But I didn't care; one day she would know what woman I meant, and I wanted her to have it right.

  "Then so it is with me. It's reason enough; I don't need another."

  "So this is about Cyric?" I asked.

  Ellia's chest lifted, and her eyes went wide. Luffie rumbled behind her. "Don't—"

  "Wouldn't it better just to speak of him," I said, thinking of her passage to the caves, so much of her pain held alone. "Plainly, I mean. As it was when you touched me at first. You said it would help if you did, even with Luffie, and you were right."

  "That's not the same."

  "It's pain, isn't it? One way or the other. Just say his name."

  "I can say his name. I say it all the time."

  "By yourself?" I challenged. "Alone, when you're afraid. In your dreams? Doesn't that only make it worse?"

  "I know who I am and what's best."

  "You just called me your friend. Won't you listen to me at all?"

  "Not for this," she replied, breathless, "It's not yours, it's mine."

  "I'm not saying I mean to take him from you. But shouldn't you get used to hearing him spoken of at least? You're going to Akadia to fight. If we win, you'll stay on. People will speak of him. Your people. Your enemies."

  "Alright. That's fine," she said. "Yes. Because of him. Because of Cyric. Cyric, Cyric. Fine. He didn't like it, so I don't use it."

  "Of course he liked it. What are you talking about?" I asked. I was only slightly debilitated by the mention of my name three times over. I was right what I'd thought in the grove; it wasn't the same when she was speaking of me, not as it had been in her cabin, when she'd called me Cyric.

  "Cole, now you're really speaking of what you don't know," Ellia said angrily. Even though in a way she'd almost gone calmer, her words coming out carefully. She was the only one.

  "I do know. He loved you. That means he loved every part of you. Your powers are part of you."

  "Is this as you said back in Yanartas, when we spoke of Molec and Amalia, and Molec loving Amalia's sons. Those were wonderful words, Cole. But if you knew Cyric at all, you would know he would have laughed at them."

  I felt my fist tighten. My jaw gripped. Heat was building in my chest. It took everything in me not to pull rank right there. "Why do you make so much of him if you say such things?" I challenged.

  Ellia actually grew a smile now. "Words?" she repeated. "His words? If I'd waited for Cyric's words to tell me anything, I would have waited forever. He wasn't like that. He wasn't a romantic."

  "What's that about him saving Nain, and the behemoths and so on in Akadia then? That sounds pretty romantic to me."

  Ellia ducked back. I only noticed now—Luffie had woken up. But glancing between us, after sharing a look with Ellia, she dropped her head back to her paws, and closed her eyelids again.

  "I didn't say he wasn't romantic," she snapped, glaring back at me. "I said he wasn't a romantic. He didn't go around saying the things you do, about souls and parts and all of that. And he didn't like magic either, a piece of me or not."

  "That's not fair," I said. She made some sort of face, but my thoughts were distant, to the night she'd first showed me her power, standing in the hall outside of Tobias' party. I remembered the feel of her wrist, my grip tightening around it. I remember how angry I'd been at her, and how I'd shouted at her for using the magic. And why had I been angry? Because I'd been scared. Because I'd cared then, so much of what Lox thought, I'd wanted to be able to become the sort of person that would impress him. Not because I'd disliked her magic—but now that I thought of the real reasons, I wasn't sure I much deserved defending myself. I wanted to tell her I didn't mean it, that I hadn't meant it, a thousand times over right now.

  "Fair or not, that's just the way it was," she replied.

  "Are you sure? Did you ever ask him?"

  Ellia reared her head back again. But then she frowned. I could see her fingers fidgeting beneath her covers. She tilted her chin up, answering weakly. "I didn't have to ask him. I heard him say it myself, a thousand times when we were young. About sorcerers."

  "He loved you," I retorted. "It would have been different."

  "I told you, he's not the same as you, Cole."

  "I'm a man, aren't I?" I said, words coming gruff for the groan in my chest. "I know the way that men love. The type that means they'd die for a woman doesn't allow them to dislike her spell-casting, or anything else she might do."

  Ellia sunk back again, now for the third time. I hoped it meant I was winning. I better have been winning. It was my own opinion we were fighting about. What could I possibly have screwed up so badly that she would think I could have disliked her magic; I loved her magic, without her magic she would have died when she'd fallen from the granted temple.

  But then I thought of her dispel stone, the way I'd pretended to dislike it, even to myself, in my own thoughts, all the while feeling it like a warmth against my chest, like the only thing left really alive about me. The only thing I'd hated was when she'd taken it away.

  "Who cares what he thought about an ability, anyways," I said. "Suppose he didn't like it." It was almost impossible to get these words out, but for the sake of convincing her. "Would he really want you to put yourself in danger by never using it?"

  Ellia swallowed short. "I told you. I'll use it if I'm in danger."

  "Surely it takes skill," I countered, "What if you need it and you're out of practice? What if, you fall, off of Luffie or something, and you don't have any control over it."

  She narrowed.

  I took a breath then went on. "I said I'd give up anything for the person I loved, but I wouldn't risk myself if that wasn't what they would want."

  Ellia's narrow deepened. She looked as if I'd struck her. She wasn't crying, but she blinked anyways, a handful of times, then she looked to the trees. Finally she looked back at the fire. It felt like an eternity that she didn't speak, and when she did, she sounded like a child; and her brows were knit low. "I wish that Cyric had thought of that," she said.

  Now it was my turn to narrow—as I retraced my words. I came up with something that didn't change my expression much. It was the last bit. "I wouldn't risk myself if it wasn't what they would want." Maybe Ellia was right, and Cole did say things that Cyric wouldn't have. Anyways, I hadn't been thinking of it for myself...

  "I understand what you're saying, Cole," Ellia said. She looked up at me, blinking her turquoise eyes. "I'll think on it," she promised.

  I opened my mouth to tell her I was sorry. But the things I had to apologize for, as either Cyric or Cole, weren't the sort to give her for her sweet dreams before bed. Sadly, I didn't think that our conversation had been either, but before I could stop her, she turned on her mat and laid down—so that she was pressed against Luffie and looking up at the sky. I lied down as well, but only so that I could look up and try to see as she saw. Were there stars? Weren't there? There was no moon up to help make it anything but blackness.

  "I think you were right about what you said, Cole," Ellia added. Now her breath was quiet, just a sigh. I heard her shift before she spoke again. "It is better to speak of him."

  I wanted to see her face again, but even if I sat up, I didn't think I could have. I contented myself with her nearness, and the f
act that these words hadn't sounded very sad.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ELLIA:

  That time I called Cole by Cyric's name, one of the first things that I thought afterwards was that I hadn't been careful enough at all. That I should have known to, that I'd been being reckless. Not the way a princess should, or any woman in my place. That I should not have touched him, that I should not have asked him to train with me, or been on my own with him so often. Now, it seemed too late for all of that.

  Maybe I'd thought since he'd had someone as well... but that didn't seem to stop him from moving on as it did me. Not that I thought he'd forgotten her; it was clear he hadn't. Only he didn't seem so maddened by it. I wanted to learn to be that way too.

  I rode in front this morning as we made our way up the pass. It was just as Yurei had shown Luffie and I upon his return; the mountain didn't take long in curving sharp upwards. In most places it was shrouded in a mix of pine trees and grey rock, or ice—all too steep to walk—but in a winding route that looked something like an especially steep river, there was a blanket of white snow. It would have been the perfect sort of thing to sled down, but as for travelling up it, I didn't think even the white tigers could have managed. The pass was obviously still too deep to traverse, but it was still our guide for flying above.

  "It's not as steep as Shaundakul is it?" Cole said. His voice was almost a shout to break over the winds. It was also snowing, in just a weak drift, but it was clear it was worsening as we rose higher. As for his nearness, he wasn't close as I had been. If not for his infrequent comments, I wouldn't have known he was there.

  From this particular one, I assumed he meant the mountain of Shaundakul—against which our Keep was built. "Of course not," I replied. "Ours isn't passable by a longshot, but I'm not sure ours go on nearly so high."

  "How many layers of clouds have we gone through by now?" he asked. "I would have thought, if there's a top to all the lands, we would have crossed into it by now."

  "If Yurei's memories are right, we're bound to hit much more snow than this before we reach Genbu. They'll be no more talking for us then."

  "No more talking for me. You and Luffie can have a whole conversation."

  I laughed, and was about to say something about him getting his own granted animal, when Luffie warned me she was about to use her fire-breath, to warm herself up. I didn't advise Cole, since I liked how it surprised him. With a long breath in, she let out a long stream of orange and yellow flames. It evaporated the snow before it could reach us, and sent a wave of heat over her entire body, not to mention the warmth running through from inside of her.

  I smiled as I felt Cole's hand reach for the harness beside me.

  "It's amazing, isn't it?" I said, both because it was my own opinion, and because it pleased Luffie that I do so. "It's like real magic."

  Luffie gave a satisfied dip, then flush of her wings, making me glad we'd stopped; that's how energized she was. Cole took a moment to reply.

  "It's hard to believe chimera aren't constellation animals. If the four are meant to be the most powerful of all the granted animals, chimera must be the one exception."

  This comment, went far in appeasing Luffie. She took off that much faster up the pass and was hardly slowed at all once the snow turned to a blizzard.

  #

  What there was to see of Genbu, up the mountain: we almost missed, even though it came directly off the pass. Cole and I certainly didn't spot it, if only for the snow; it made the sky almost completely dark. But Luffie, following Yurei's sight, dropped down beside what looked to be a giant stone, even cloaked in ice and snow. But upon closer inspection, it was much too clean to be a part of the mountain. It was circular, as a disc, then rising up as if the discs were stacked one on top of the other in different sizes, starting small, then growing wider, then turning small again. It wasn't very tall altogether. At its widest space, there was an open ring that might have worked as a lookout, but in this weather, it was left empty. Luffie used it, all the same, to drop down and escape the blizzard.

  My arms were frozen stiff as I wrapped her reigns around her saddle for dismount. This time I heard Cole drop down first. He landed to the stone, which was slippery with ice, keeping one hand on Luffie, then held his arms out for me. He was all covered in layers, and looked even more like a Kanthian than he always did, but now I guessed that I did as well. I accepted his help, sharing thoughts with Luffie about where we were meant to go from here. I'd only just asked it, and Luffie had only just shaken her fur free of ice, when a turquoise light poured onto the balcony.

  I looked to see a door opening, heavy and wooden, and from it walked two cloaked and armored figures.

  "You'll do the talking, then," Cole said, a bit of a question, reminding me of his offer to do it for me. I only dismissed this, loosening myself free from his arms where he still had me from helping to dismount, and turning sideways from him to face the approaching Genbu.

  "Well, look another one," the first figure remarked, obviously including Luffie in her gesture. She was a woman, her voice, if not her frame, told me this.

  Luffie flushed her wings.

  The second figure moved past the first, the bearded face of a man. "It was as he said, there'd be another. You must be a princess, then, right? Or so he told us."

  "She doesn't look like a princess," the woman commented.

  I'd kept opening my mouth to speak, but at this, my lips pressed and I narrowed a little in disappointment, while Luffie gave a snort.

  Then I felt Cole's hand move to my head. He pulled back my layers of hoods in a single deft motion, so it all toppled down behind me.

  "Oh," the two figures said in unison, their expressions entirely changed.

  I dropped my brows to a deeper narrow while Luffie made a sound more resembling a laugh than anything I'd ever heard from her. I couldn't help but feel Cole was finding it equally amusing as the two figures bowed their heads. "Welcome to Genbu, Princess."

  .

  The turquoise light: that was the first curiosity to me; and the question it posed was quickly answered. As the two Genbuans led us, even Luffie, inside, the color was revealed as torches. Simply torches with flames, that was all, but their color was turquoise. Others were cobalt. Some were plain yellow. It was hard not to be distracted by them as an oddity, as we were greeted by the two Genbuans, then shortly others. Not many others, though; as we learned, this was not the city itself. It was only the outpost that marked the gateway to city—which resided even further up the mountain.

  The inside of the outpost was plain and stone. All levels but the lowest were separate, so that each room we entered had ceilings only twice our height, and I wondered whether we would be completely cramped for our entire stay in Genbu. The man and woman were the ones to lead us through; they seemed sincere in their duties, but equally unusual. They didn't cease to find the tiniest details amusing, and joked along with each other between grim explanations of the procedures of the outpost.

  They took away all our extra robes without hesitation, saying they would hold them for us; that we wouldn't need more than a spare coat for the city. They freed Luffie of her harness, without a care for her teeth or claws; only praises for her golden colors, then set her before a hearth to warm herself. When they offered Cole and I a meal of warm stew, they left her an entire pot of her own food, and that had settled her on remaining at the outpost in wait for us.

  It had already been Gael's suggestion, since it seemed there was some sort of effect on Yurei for entering. He hadn't been able to share his memories of it at least, not Gael's or his own. I remembered travelling to Echren with Cyric, and the way which Tosch had had to wait outside. Byako was not the same, but neither was Shaundakul. When I thought of Echren, it had a much stronger sense of the mystical than the other two cities. But its direction was south, while Genbu's was north; it would have made sense for them to be the same. Also, their elements, fire and water, verses stone and metal; they were much
more inexplicable, not as grounded to what we could define, for lack of a better term.

  "By the stars, I could stand here and stare at this forever," I said in a gasp, "Have you ever seen such a thing, Cole? I've never seen colors so bright."

  We were just the two of us left alone now. The Genbuans had led us down to the tunnel that cut off from the base of their outpost. It wasn't like a natural cave. It was perfectly chiseled out, so that if we hadn't passed a second entrance which broke back out towards the blizzard, I wouldn't have known we weren't still inside a proper building. The shaped of it was like an arch, but tall enough for a dragon to crawl through if needed. It went on so far that you couldn't see the end, but the amazing aspect were the lines of torches going down the tunnel. Like the turquoise flames above, they looked perfectly normal, only they were made of every color. One after another, maroon, then blue, then purple, then green, and so on, like a rainbow. I'd been so in awe, that I'd hardly noticed when our guide had left. And only once Cole and I had walked some yards on and I was sure that the flames weren't my imagination did I comment.

  "Truly, Cole. I think they must be an illusion. Do you think they could be real?"

  I reached my hand up to feel the warmth of one, and he caught it by the wrist. I looked over to see his eyes lit green. He had the lot of our bags over his shoulders, otherwise he wore his robes and an overcoat, so that he nearly disappeared into the walls around us. "Best not to risk checking," he said.

  I furrowed my brow at him. "I wasn't going to touch it. Oh, Cole, do you know that your eyes look perfectly green now. I think they must catch every color that ever shines on them. Regular fire always turns them orange."

  He only hesitated a second. He hadn't yet released my wrist. "In that case, I'll stand beside the turquoise flames," he said, "and I'll be the handsomest of Kanthians."