“Do you think they would?”
“I do.”
She sighed. “I’m not even sure I want to return. When I was in my village, I never wanted to stay there. No one does, but at the same time, there’s really no hope of escape, either. I suppose I had come to terms with the fact that I would always be there.”
“You don’t want to go back to your parents?”
“I’m sure my parents think I’m dead.”
“Wouldn’t they want to know that you’re alive?”
“I don’t know.” She looked down at her hands, twisting them together.
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing.”
Haern knew better than to push. She deserved better, and considering how she fell silent, he decided that he wouldn’t cause her more distress.
“Why don’t you get some rest?”
She looked over at him for a moment, studying him before getting to her feet and joining the other girls. Haern took a drink from the stream, letting the cold water wash through his mouth, and began to pace, once more making a circuit of the campsite. At least tonight he was better rested, even if it was only a few hours. Hopefully they would find a place to stop and keep the girls safe within the next day or so, but there was no one else out on the road, and the absence of people left him wondering if they were even heading toward some settlement, or if they weren’t going to find anything at all.
By the time morning came, the girls awoke again, and they started off. Haern’s stomach was rumbling, so he couldn’t imagine how the others felt. Considering how little they had reportedly eaten during captivity, he feared they wouldn’t be able to hold out for much longer.
The day passed, eventually rolling toward evening, and as it did, he was reassured by the fact that they hadn’t come across the hounds again. Maybe they really were gone.
Every so often, he dropped a coin, pushing off so that he could scan the horizon, looking for a way toward civilization. Once he found a city, he could look for the Binders. Then he could ensure the girls’ safety.
Near evening, he found a road.
As dusk fell, movement in the north caught his attention.
He tried to make out just what it was but struggled to do so. There had to be something out there, though what was it?
Even if he managed to reach it, he wasn’t sure he wanted to do so at this time of day. It would be better for them to be fully rested, better for them to have a chance to come at it without fearing they would be overwhelmed, and better for them to wait, but the longer he stared, the less certain he was they could wait.
Whatever was out there was making its way toward them.
“What is it?” Elise asked.
Haern shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Is it… is it them?”
It shouldn’t be the hounds, but he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t. He would’ve expected to have more time before the hounds managed to catch them, but he didn’t know enough about the creatures to know whether or not that was true.
Haern glanced at the others with him before coming to a decision. They couldn’t rest. Regardless of how tired they might be, he didn’t dare take an opportunity to sleep yet. What they needed to do was stay ahead of whatever was coming in their direction.
It meant continuing on. It meant that despite the exhaustion that most of them—probably all of them—felt, they had no choice but to continue to push onward.
Haern said nothing to the others, not wanting to scare them, but continued to encourage them to hurry along. As they walked, he couldn’t help but feel as if the movement in the distance was getting closer.
It was possible that it was.
As the evening drew on, he realized that he would have to make a choice. Either he could continue on their journey with the others, trying to encourage them to move as quickly as possible, or he could attempt something different.
Something different meant potentially dangerous, but it also meant the likelihood that they could reach safety.
Wasn’t that what he was after?
Haern took a deep breath, glancing over before deciding.
“Keep moving. I’m going to see what is after us,” he said to Elise.
“You can’t leave us like this.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m only taking a moment to try to ensure we are safe. I will catch up once again.”
Elise watched him, and there was pain in her eyes that he couldn’t stand, but he also didn’t dare remain behind, not until he knew exactly what it was that they might be facing.
It left him with no choice but to head away from the others and hope this wasn’t anything to fear.
24
Daniel
Returning to Elaeavn was difficult. Daniel Slid from Nyaesh, emerging in Asador for a moment to recuperate, and then from there, he Slid onward, making his way toward Elaeavn. If he had more confidence in his strength, he would have done so in a single Slide, but traveling in this way was taxing.
Then again, it wasn’t quite as taxing as he would’ve expected it to be.
When they emerged near the Ilphaesn Mountain, Rayen looked over at him. “Why all the stops?”
“So that we don’t end up in the middle of this mountain,” he said, looking up at it.
“It is impressive, though not quite as impressive as some farther to the south.”
“There are larger mountains to the south?”
“Incredible mountains to the south, and even beyond that.”
“Maybe I need to spend more time Sliding around the world.”
“I thought that was part of what you were doing.”
“I hadn’t spent that much time doing it before.”
He turned his attention to Elaeavn. It would’ve been easier had he been able to Slide with Lucy, but she had another assignment, a task that she hadn’t wanted to share with him. Though it troubled him, he thought he understood. If he were captured, he wouldn’t be able to betray them.
“Have you ever been to Elaeavn?”
“I’ve been near it,” she said.
“Near?”
She pointed to the sea. “We sailed past a few times, and though your people like to think your city is concealed from the water, the angles don’t quite work out as well as they believe. From a distance—and with the right spyglass—it’s quite easy to make out the entirety of your city.”
“When I was growing up, I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else.”
“Most children feel the same way.”
Daniel took a deep breath. There were times when he thought it would’ve been easier to have stayed within Elaeavn, to have taken up the role his parents wanted for him. Had he done that, he never would have gotten involved with Carth. He never would have known about the extent of the Ai’thol. He would have feared the Forgers, the same way everyone who lived in Elaeavn feared the Forgers and the possibility of another attack, but beyond that, he would have known a relative safety.
It might be ignorance, but within ignorance was also a certain happiness.
Now that he knew the truth, and now that he had experienced much more of the world outside the borders of Elaeavn, he would never be able to enjoy that blissful sort of ignorance again.
“I wouldn’t have stayed if I hadn’t believed it was worthwhile for me to do so,” he said.
In the distance, waves crashed along the shore. The sound was no longer familiar to him. After having spent so much time in Nyaesh, he’d begun to forget the steady rhythms of the sea as waves crashed along the shores. As a child, he had known the distant sound of the waves along the shore. Even within the palace, it was possible to hear that sound, to listen to it as the waves struck, and to be lulled into a certain sense of comfort by it.
He reached out his hand, waiting for Rayen to take it, and stepped forward in a Slide.
It carried him to the shores of Elaeavn. From here, the steady washing of the waves along the shoreline came to him. Along with it were the occa
sional sounds of seagulls as they swirled overhead. As it was early evening, the sun having set, leaving the sky darkened, dozens of voices out in the streets drifted toward them. Here along the shore, there weren’t nearly as many.
A darkened shape slithered out of the shadows, and Daniel froze.
It took a moment for him to See that it was nothing more than a black cat.
Rayen laughed at him. “All that for a kitty?”
“Cats are viewed differently in Elaeavn.”
“And why is that?”
“Superstition, mostly.”
Rayen made her way toward the cat, crouching down in front of it. It circled around in front of her before rubbing its face up against her hand. She glanced up at him. “I don’t see anything dangerous about this little kitty. He’s hungry. Don’t your people feed them?”
Daniel shook his head. “No one feeds the stray cats.”
“No one?”
“There are plenty of rodents and scraps they manage to find even without anyone feeding them.” And he wasn’t about to tell her that cats could be both lucky and unlucky, depending on how many there were. Thinking about it left him feeling a bit foolish about the superstition.
“That seems cruel,” Rayen said. She stood, and the cat wound around her ankles, rubbing up against her. “In my homeland, we keep cats as pets. One like this would be prized.”
“Why like that?”
“Because it’s all black, of course.”
Daniel chuckled. “Do your people think the shadows favor it somehow?”
“Is that any different than the way your people view cats?”
He frowned before shaking his head. “I suppose not.”
“Some places I’ve traveled have even larger cats.”
“We have those, too. They roam through the forest.” The idea of getting too close to some of the animals in the forest made him uncomfortable. He could Slide from them and had never been attacked, but he didn’t really want to see any of those creatures, either. No one did.
“I suppose you find them unlucky as well.”
“No. Just dangerous.”
“Cats are skilled hunters.”
“Maybe we can train them to hunt the Ai’thol.”
Rayen glanced down, looking at the cat for a long moment. “I think this one is too little.”
“Right now it’s too little, but wait until it grows up.”
She looked over at him. “This kitty will get quite a bit larger?”
Daniel smiled to himself before shaking his head. “I shouldn’t tease you like that. The feral cats in Elaeavn stay about the same size. Most of them are small like that one, but the larger cats are out in the forest.”
“What if the kittens are in the city and the full-grown adults stay out in the forest?”
“That’s unlikely.”
“Does anyone keep these animals as pets?”
Daniel shook his head vigorously. “No. I couldn’t even imagine anyone willing to do that.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Well—”
Rayen started laughing, leaning over and petting the kitten again before standing and turning her attention to him. “I can see the little kitty makes you nervous. I won’t pick on you anymore.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Fine. I won’t pick on you much more.”
Daniel resisted the urge to turn away from the cats. As Rayen suggested, it was a foolish superstition, and it was one that he shouldn’t abide by anymore. He was old enough now that he should be comfortably certain there was nothing dangerous about these cats—other than the fact that they often came in large groupings.
He shivered, pushing away those thoughts.
Rayen watched, amusement curving her mouth. “Where now?”
“Rsiran Lareth is going to be within the forest.”
“You didn’t want to Slide us there?”
“With the protections placed around it, it wouldn’t be easy for me to do.” Lucy probably could Slide beyond those protections now, but he wasn’t able to do so. He could reach Elaeavn, and from here, he could walk into the Aisl, but more than that was beyond his ability to Slide.
“Did you want to come to the city?” she asked.
Daniel looked up toward the palace, his gaze drawn almost unintentionally. It had been a long time since he had visited, but he doubted much had changed. There was something about the palace, looking up at it from this angle, that he always found strange. The palace had been designed to blend into the rock, much the same as everything in the city had been designed to blend in, concealing it from the outside world so that anyone sailing past wouldn’t see it easily. The only problem was that within the city, the palace seemed to float from certain angles, jutting out from the rock, giving it the appearance of hovering in the sky, almost as if it were blessed with abilities of its own from the Great Watcher.
“Ah. I see.”
“What do you see?”
“That’s your home, isn’t it?”
“It was, but it hasn’t been for quite a while.”
“I thought Elaeavn has been your home?”
“I have been away from the city itself for quite some time. My parents wanted me to lead, but that was never what I wanted.”
“Leadership takes many forms. I never wanted to lead either, but Carth encouraged me to be more than I thought I could be.”
Daniel continued to stare up at the palace. Had he remained, he would have been on track to assume his father’s position on the Council. Strangely, with the training Carth had provided, he was better suited now than when he had been here.
“We can go to the forest,” he said.
“Perhaps a better use of time would be for us to travel to your home.”
“There’s nothing for me there.”
“Will they be angry if they learn that you visited but did not come to see them?” Rayen asked.
“They won’t even know that I was here.”
“But if they learn that you came?”
“Even if they learn that I came, it won’t really matter to them.”
Rayen studied him for a long moment before shaking her head. “No.”
“No what?”
“I’m not going to let you leave without visiting them.”
“I’m not going to go and visit with them.” He crossed his arms over his chest, watching her. There was movement nearby, and he glanced to see whether another cat was making its way toward them, though he didn’t see it. He must have seen something. What was it?
“Why be so stubborn about this?”
“Because it doesn’t matter.”
“Do you dislike them?”
Daniel pressed his mouth together, frowning. “I’m not certain how I feel about them. My father in particular. If he was involved in what happened to Lucy…”
“You won’t know until you visit.”
“And he’ll be angry that I left. He wanted me to serve the Elvraeth.”
“We can’t always be what our parents want. My parents never wanted me to master the shadows.”
Daniel frowned. “Why wouldn’t they? I thought the ability was highly valued by your people.”
“Do you know anything about my people?”
Daniel shook his head, realizing that he didn’t.
“Carth came from a time when Ih-lash still was more than just a memory. Even she didn’t live there for much of it. Her parents brought her away, saving her from the destruction. But the power of the shadows lived on.”
“How?”
“At first, it lived on with people known as the Reshian. They were hunted, sacrificed in a way that I still don’t fully understand, and because of that my family wanted to protect me, to keep me from using my magic out of fear that I might draw the wrong kind of attention.”
“They were afraid of losing you?”
“More that they feared for themselves. They might have told themselves there was a different reason fo
r it, but that was not the case. They were afraid, and because of their fear, they were willing to let others suffer.”
“How would they let others suffer?”
“They let others suffer because they were unwilling to risk anything. They thought that by hiding, they could avoid losing themselves.”
“The way you say it suggests that something else happened.”
She nodded. Her gaze swung around her, taking in the city. Darkness clouded her features for a moment, and she looked over at Daniel, a hint of sadness still on her face. “My parents were lost because they never were willing to fight.”
“How?”
“Does it matter how?”
“Was it the Ai’thol?”
“That would be easier, wouldn’t it? It would explain my desire to fight them, but no. The Ai’thol weren’t involved. There are other evils in the world, Daniel Elvraeth. It’s not only the Ai’thol we need to fear.”
“I’ve seen other evils in the world.”
“Have you? One thing that you haven’t done, as you have said, is travel extensively. Without seeing anything other than your own slice of the world, it is difficult to say that you truly understand the darkness that can exist. Unfortunately, you have begun to know that the world is a dark place, and in time, I suspect you will be exposed to much awfulness. For now, you can’t claim you have seen the same evils.”
She turned away from him, heading down the street, and Daniel raced after her, wanting to catch up and apologize. It seemed as if he needed to do so, that she was angered by something he’d said, but why? What would have bothered her so much?
When he reached her at the corner of the street, he grabbed for her arm, and she shook him off. “I don’t need your reassurance.”
“I wouldn’t have said that you did.”
She frowned at him and suddenly spun, streaking forward on a surge of shadows. When she stopped, a pair of men converged near her.
Daniel was frozen at first.
Could these be Ai’thol? There had been Forger attacks within the city before, but never quite like this. Always in the past they had been more coordinated, and when the attack had come, they had involved much greater danger than this. Two men didn’t pose any real threat.
The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3 Page 131