Somewhere in the trees, the horses softly nickered and stomped at the moss.
Kemi giggled and glanced upward. “Then by the light of this moon and with these trees and horses as our witnesses, we are married.”
“I love you.” He kissed her lips, softly, gently. Kissing didn't feel natural to him, but she wanted it, so he hoped he would become used to it. Hopefully all of the physical aspects of their relationship would become less awkward with time.
“I love you,” she whispered back. She ran her fingers through his hair, then smiled. “There's something I really, really want to do to you right now. Will you let me?”
“Definitely.” He kissed her again, then eased her back onto the blankets.
20
Shan
Where are you?
–S
TESSEN? WHY HAVEN'T you written to me?
–S
TALK TO ME. PLEASE. I miss you.
–S
SHAN STARED AT THE paper as black letters wicked across the page. This was not Tessen's neat handwriting, but an ugly and barely-legible scrawl.
YOUR BROTHER IS GONE. I don't know if he'll return. He left this book on his table with a note saying your mom and I should write to you. He has been falling for a long time and he decided he needed to be alone before his magic tore apart what little was left of him. I think he intended to take Serida into the wild and disappear, but then Ragan found out and insisted upon following him. That didn't happen. Something else did, something no one here is willing to explain. It seems he was pulled in to participate in some sort of spell or ritual, and then he and three others were gone. Iefyr and Elsin were two of the others, and Tessen's note said we're not to write the name of the fourth in any context. Anyway, we don't know where they are. The Guardian says they're still alive, but they're somewhere else. Hopefully it's somewhere that Tessen can be calmer than he was here. I trust the other three with him enough to know they'll look out for him.
Your–
SHAN DIDN'T WAIT FOR Daelis to finish before picking up his own pen and writing on the opposite page.
DAD, WHAT IN THE HELL is going on there? He never told me he was having problems. I know his anxiety tells him he's a burden if he bothers other people with his issues, but I thought he was being honest with me. It's the middle of winter, what was he thinking wanting to go off alone?
–S
I DON'T THINK HE WAS thinking at all. He was desperate and nothing else he tried relieved his pain enough to be worthwhile. There are things happening here that I can't tell you about and they're the reason he deteriorated so quickly. I have some hope for him now though, because of who he's with. Iefyr and his other friend understand him well enough they might be able to help him.
Your mom isn't taking this well, and neither is Ragan. They both feel like they failed him. So do I. I haven't been doing a very good job at convincing Rin that he'll eventually come back. It probably feels like a lie to her so I don't think she appreciates my optimism. She stressed herself into labor. It was a little early, but they'll be okay. They're big and strong enough that they're doing fine, and I think they were going to make an appearance about now anyway.
–Dad
THEY, WHO, DAD?
–S
SORRY. I SHOULD HAVE elaborated.
You have two new sisters, born last night. Their names are Katina and Zoria. They look a lot more like you than Zinnia does, but I think they'll have their mother's blue eyes. They look like they're identical. They're doing well, but I think your mom is already overwhelmed. She's asleep right now, and so is Zoria. Katina is the fussier of the two, so I'm wearing her in the sling and trying to keep Zinnia's hands off her. Zin is fascinated and so excited I'm having trouble getting her to sleep. Once she does go down, I guess I need to get some rest, too. I haven't slept yet.
–Dad
I WISH I COULD MEET them. I'm having some trouble imagining you surrounded by all these daughters, but you have four now. I wish we'd had more time to get to know each other before we were separated again.
–Shan
SHAN, WE'LL SEE EACH other again. You'll get to meet your sisters, and Rin and I will get to meet our grandchild. I'm confident of it. These strange states we're both living in are temporary.
–Dad
DID TESSEN GIVE YOU his optimism when he lost his own?
I love you and I miss you. Try not to worry about me. I miss Lumin, but I'm fine. Marita and I both are.
–S
I LOVE YOU, TOO. ZINNIA finally fell asleep on the rug by the hearth. I'm not sure where Yana is. She's found some new friends to play with so I don't see as much of her as usual.
GO TO SLEEP, DAD. YOU're going to need it.
I have some things I need to do, so I'll talk to you more another time. I wish the circumstances for you getting ahold of Tessen's journal were different. I think you're right, though. He'll come back. He's too devoted to our family not to.
Love you,
Shan
“SHIT. GODS DAMN IT all, Tessen,” Shan muttered as he closed the journal. He reached into the drawer of the side table and pulled out a small wooden box. He opened it and set the heart compass on his palm. The needle spun in circles, wildly switching directions at random intervals. “Sarding shit. Why can't I find you?”
“Because it points toward what you love most, and you don't know who that is anymore.” Marita slipped onto the bed next to him. She picked up the journal and flipped it to the most recent scrawls. She read for a moment while Shan continued to stare at the spinning compass needle. “Oh, hell. Why didn't he tell you?”
“Because our relationship has been nothing but lies for longer than I care to admit,” Shan muttered. He flipped the compass over several times, then shook it, but the needle continued to spin. “And it's not him anymore, and it's not Lumin. Why doesn't it point to you? I love you. I want it to be you. I'm so sorry. It should be you.”
She dropped the journal and pulled him into a kiss. Tense and breathless, she released him and said, “It is me. But it's also your brother and your parents and the sisters you wish so badly to know. It's Lumin and Alon and anyone else you've loved who has moved from this world to the next. It's our baby, but I don't think that love will be fully realized for you until she's born and you hold her for the first time. Your heart isn't confused, it's reaching. And the compass is showing you that even here, even as lost and alone as you feel, your heart is full of love for everyone who matters to you.”
“No, it's broken. My heart is broken, and so is this.” He tossed the compass and box back in the nightstand and slammed the drawer shut. “I know he couldn't tell me everything that was happening at the Guardian's sanctuary because we all know Nylian is spying on us, but he didn't tell me anything. He mentioned the empathy was bothering him a couple months ago, but he made it sound as if he'd found a solution. His notes to me were so empty, little lies everywhere. I guess mine were, too.”
“He'll be fine. I think he's doing the same thing I did when I ran away from Jadeshire—trying to figure out who he is. Give him time and he will return to your family.” She picked up the journal again and opened to Daelis's first message. “You do know who he's with, right?”
Kembriana Lightborn. The name appeared in the air before them, written in calligraphed shadows. He sliced his hand to the side and cut the letters in half. They crackled, then dissolved into the light. He sputtered his lips and sighed. “He's a stubborn asshole. I wouldn't be surprised if he never speaks to any of us again.”
“And she's terrible for him,” Marita said. She leaned against him and rested her hands on her belly. “I've overheard things about her. From her brothers, from Nylian's wives, from the palace staff. She comes off as sweet and docile, but she is cunning and manipulative. She takes after her father and uses her calm and gentle demeanor to get what she wants no matter the expense, but if she is denied she becomes vindictive. When she was a child she once walked straight up to her eldest broth
er and asked what would have to happen for her to become the primary heir to the throne. When he told her everyone in the ascension line between the High King and herself would have to be removed, she said, 'Oh, is that all?' and walked away laughing. And now she's the heir to the Moonlight Guardianship instead, and if she chose, she could do even more damage there than as High Queen. Do you want to know why?”
“I'm afraid to ask.”
Marita reached into her own nightstand and pulled out a chewed-up text, the same one Lumin had stolen before he was murdered. The Fae Genesis. She set it on her lap and shook her head. “Nylian recognized your brother as an empath when they met, but he thought it was just a weak quirk of a magic skill. I mean, Tessen himself didn't even recognize what he was at that point. If Nylian had known just how gifted he is, he never would have let him leave. Your brother, frankly, is a pushover. He wants to please people. He wants people to like him. He is genuinely kind and altruistic. That's why with the wrong benefactor, he can be dangerous. He can be manipulated and used as a weapon just as a Spellkeeper can. And now she has him. And we both remember how she was looking at him when they were here. She loved him, probably still does. I don't know if she's his friend or his lover at this point, but either is dangerous for him.”
She opened the book to a marked page and passed it to Shan. “The Moonlight Guardian has her Regiment, but she is also the Matriarch of the Children of the Eclipse, a religious order supposedly tens of thousands of years old. They are a secret society, but travelers occasionally come across well-kept temples to the moon goddess Zaradia in the deep mountains all throughout Bacra. Their members are said to include magic-skilled of all varieties, but they prefer warlocks, lightbinder witches, and green witches. I know why you don't want to read this book, so I read it for you. It's important. The Fae were not created by The Crown. They were created by the Moonlight Guardian and her followers as a peace offering for an ancient High Queen. Eclipse warlocks, lightbinders, and greens worked together to infuse animal magic into lowborn elves, and the Fae were born. And then promptly enslaved, but there is some debate among the author's sources about whether the original slavers were the Eclipse order or Crown loyalists. I need you to look down at the page now. What is the Ancient Elven translation for Children of the Eclipse?”
Shan gasped as he read the word. “Lun'jarrahdor. Jarrah? They're the Jarrah?”
Marita tugged at the end of her auburn braid. “I don't know, but it's worth further research, isn't it? After reading this book, I suspect they may have been the same order, but they split into at least two sects sometime in the distant past. I doubt that the Moonlight Guardian is currently the head of the Jarrah, but a distant predecessor might have been. And look here.” She opened to a second marker and pointed. “Cave elves once populated the region of the Mordova Mountains now known as the Diamond Realm, but the sub-race vanished in the middle years of the second age, preceding the establishment of Anthora as the Bacran capital. Three theories later emerged as to their fate: extinction, assimilation via mixed marriages with higher-order elves, and permanent retreat into the caves they favored. If the third theory is the correct one, a subterranean race of sub-elves may have evolved.”
“Or the same high elves who enslaved the Fae also enslaved the Uldru,” Shan said. He stretched his arms over his head as he yawned. He had an urge to walk around and stretch his legs, but his hip still wasn't healed enough to allow for much movement. The tissue was scarring as intended, but he had a deep and bruising ache in his joint and thigh bone that made him wonder if Nylian had somehow injured him while maiming him. “I think we need to do some further reading before deciding if there truly is a link between the Guardians and the Jarrah or if the translation is a coincidence.”
“It could be. I found a Master at the University of Anthora who knows some Ancient Elven. I just gave him that one word, Lun'jarrahdor. He told me he had never heard or seen that specific word, but if he broke it up, it did translate. Lun is 'kin', jar'ra is 'occultation', and h'dor is a modifier related to the moon. If you're the Eclipse Spellkeeper, in Ancient Elven you would be called something like Sha'raedal Jar'rah'dor. Collected Magic of the Lunar Eclipse.”
“The hell with that. I'm a magical garbage bin of spite and chaos.” He repeatedly clicked his tongue against his teeth as he watched the snow blow past the window. “He's still not letting me in the library. He promised me I'd be allowed, but I still can't walk past the threshold of this suite without permission. I need you to find some things for me, but mix in some random books so you don't attract attention and no one suspects our specific interests. We'll go vague first. Look for books with key words and subjects like eclipses, Moonlight Guardian, Fae, cave elves, secret societies, lightbinders . . . I don't know, anything that could be even remotely related. Ancient, modern, conspiracy theories, anything. I expect it will take us years to parse through everything, and I think we have that time unless Nylian finds and drags in more Spellkeepers. I don't think he's in a rush, either, since it will be a couple years before he can complete Jei. Have you seen her yet? Or her husband?”
“No. Korion apparently did something to piss him off and now he won't let either of them out of their residence. I'll see what I can find, and hopefully we're not speculating in the wrong direction with this.” She kissed his cheek, then guided his hand onto her belly. “Right there. Do you feel it?”
Shan closed his eyes and waited, but felt nothing but the steady rhythm of her breathing. “No.”
“Damn it. Hopefully soon. I've been feeling less fluttering and more distinctive kicks these last couple days.”
A tiny pop thumped against the base of his pointer finger. “Okay, I felt that. Teeny, tiny little twitch.”
“Felt like a pretty big kick to me,” Marita said. She reached up and combed her fingers through the ragged ends of Shan's hair. “That's our baby you just felt. Half you and half me to make an entirely new person. I know you don't want this, but once she's born that compass of yours is going to point straight toward her, and it's never going to move again.”
His hand still on her, he tilted his head back until it rested on the headboard. He couldn't remember a time that he'd ever wanted to be a father, and he still didn't. But he knew what it was like to grow up unwanted and abandoned by his own father, and he wasn't going to do to his child what Daelis had done to him. He had grown to love Daelis, but that love was fragile and incomplete. He would never fully forgive him for what he had done, especially to Rin.
“I'm trying, Marita,” Shan said as her fingertips slowly traced the line of his collarbone. “I wish I could feel how you do. I see you whispering to her and smiling as you feel her move. I don't have that connection with her, not yet, but I think you're right that I will once I meet her.” He opened his eyes and smirked at her. “And wait until those little kicks you feel turn into full somersaults and shadowboxing. Zinnia was really active and I thought it looked painful when my mom's belly was moving all over like she had an animal trying to escape in there.”
“I don't think she minds so much, not considering she now has birthed six children,” Marita said.
“Seven, and at least three of us were accidents. Alon wasn't, and neither was Calen, the baby she and Ragan lost. Tessen, Zinnia, and I were definitely accidents, and I doubt she was expecting to have twins this time. I don't think she regrets any of us, though, and she told me before Zinnia was born that she enjoys pregnancy, at least as much as she can expect considering she gives birth to wild animals.”
Marita giggled as she chewed at her fingernails. “I hope I get to meet your mother someday.”
“So do I. I think you'd get on wonderfully.” He carefully adjusted his position until he was facing her, then landed a long and deep kiss on her lips. “I love you. This baby is so lucky to have you as her mother. I'm a chaotic dolt, so she's going to need you. And you are going to be amazing with her. I'm excited to watch you become someone's mother.”
Marita embraced
him and kissed his temple. “She needs you, too. Don't go doing anything that might take you away from her.”
“I'm not planning on it. Not anymore.”
“THIS IS INTERESTING. I don't think it's correct, but it's an interesting perspective.” Shan turned the book so it faced Marita, then patted his pocket. The tiny copper egg rattled and clicked. Hatching was imminent.
“I can't read this,” Marita said. Her fingers traced the chart as she shook her head. “Dwarvish?”
“Yeah. I was learning it because Tessen is fluent, but I couldn't use it to write to him because Nylian has too many dwarves in his employment who can translate for him.” He turned the book back around and tapped on each word. “This is a theory of Bacran genesis. It says the major races originated from a single proto-people, the Delese. In the middle of the First Age, the Delese began to split into castes based on dominant traits, and then again and again as the race continued to evolve. The first split was elves and orcs. Then halflings and cave elves split off from elves, and humans split off from orcs. Dwarves split off from humans. Rahki, gnomes, and goblins split off from halflings. There are a couple races I don't recognize on here. Ipians as a split from humans, Eomolis as a split from orcs, Archion as a split from elves. Maybe those are extinct or they migrated to another part of the world.”
“Or they're old dwarven myths and never existed at all,” Marita suggested. “This is a book of dwarven mythology, my dear.”
Spellkeeper Page 34