“But my sister was still gone. No revenge would bring her back. Thus, I devoted myself to defeating the corrupt government that had allowed my sister's abduction in the first place.”
Bayne did not speak right away. After some time, he asked, “What was your sister's name?”
“Elenara Seperun, but we called her Elena.”
“Elena,” Bayne repeated. “I am sorry, Seperun.”
“Don’t be, because I see that your women are just as respected as your men, and I know that others like my sister have a chance somewhere. I want for my people to have what you have given your own people.”
Bayne looked out over the mixture of Fenearens and Maenorens around the central fire pit as he considered Seperun's words.
“I saw her once. Your niece.”
Bayne did not interrupt him. He tried to collect himself.
“She was fierce; her eyes held intelligence, but then you already knew that.”
“Where is she, Seperun? You tell me she is alive, but I know my niece. Had there been any way for her to return, she would have found it.”
“Before Rayna left Anhorde, she gained information on how she could help her friend Channon by traveling to the Eye of Heaven. Once she has succeeded in that, I have no doubt she will return.”
“But in the Outers, traveling so far north on her own? I have been in the Kyrean Republic, Seperun. Some years before Rayna was born, her father, myself, and a man called Damen went on a mission of goodwill to the Kyreans. Aquillo and I barely made it back. Damen did not.”
“I am sorry to hear that, Bayne, but if you look into your heart, you will know Rayna lives.”
“I have not trusted my heart for months.” Bayne stood.
“Good night, Alpha.” Seperun also stood, giving a quick bow.
“Good night,” Bayne said before walking toward his den.
Silver put down her dressing knife and whetstone when he entered. “What did he say?”
He kissed her on the forehead. “He lost his sister, which is why he turned against the Demetrian government.”
“Do you think this is one of Rhael’s tricks?”
“No, but I suppose we can't rule that out.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“Let them stay. We need all the help we can get, and this just does not smell like Rhael.”
Silver snorted. “Coming into our country and gaining our trust before exploiting us stinks of Rhael, but I agree. Why would he spend so much time and money amassing an enormous army if he's planned to destroy us with another trick? Besides, there is no way that letter was a forgery. Rayna trusted this Resistance, and we're not in a position to turn down help.”
Although his mind still fizzled with worry, Bayne managed to sleep. But images of Rayna and her parents haunted his dreams, allowing him little rest. He woke in the dark predawn, resolute that he would not fail Rayna again.
When Bayne walked from his den, the sun was just rising, cold and white. Roxen sat on the rock platform by the fire pit, swinging his legs off the edge. Bayne approached and noted the purple halos around Roxen’s eyes.
“Couldn’t get much sleep?” Bayne asked as he leaned against the rock.
“I didn’t sleep at all,” he said.
“You have to take care of yourself, Rox.”
“I don’t like sleeping. I don’t like dreaming.”
“Look, these past few weeks have been tough, but your mother would not want you to be like this.”
Roxen snorted. “I am not you, Bayne. I can't stand here, taking whatever the world throws at me. I used to fight back, but now I understand that’s just as pointless as pretending nothing happened.”
“That isn’t true. We need you. I need you, Roxen. I cannot do this alone.”
“You have Silver.”
“Aye, and I need her, too. But Alphen are nothing without their Beta.”
“Then I guess Fenear has lost everything, too.”
“Don’t talk like that.” Bayne sighed.
“Like what? Speaking the truth?”
“Cynically. It's not like you.”
“I guess I've changed,” Roxen whispered as he formed and jumped down from the ledge.
“Where are you going?” Bayne asked.
Hunting, he responded with a flick of his tail before sprinting into the stark forest. Bayne watched him go, telling himself that Roxen would be better soon. But Nero was still alive because Roxen had convinced Bayne to spare his life. They could not have known Roxen’s mother would pay the price of their mercy, but even so, there was no escaping pain like that. Bayne and Roxen could only face it and hope it did not consume them.
Chapter Twenty-Four
When Rayna stepped onto the mountain path carved by centuries of Ice Wolves’ paws, the numbness deepened until her very bones hummed. It was more than the cold and trepidation. She took another step, and her unease increased. She gritted her teeth, pushing on despite her shaking legs and tingling fingertips. As she made her way forward, the humming built until she could not only feel it, but hear it. It grew louder with each step. It was not the dissonant screaming she had heard in her dreams, but the persistent thrum was disturbing in its own right. Her teeth clacked together despite her clenched jaw, and she did not know whether it was because of the cold or the sound. Perhaps they were the same. That did not feel true, but Rayna clung to this explanation. The gusts had picked up, blowing frozen chunks of snow into her face, sharp as knives. The wind was the cold and the sound. That was all.
She tied her scarf over her mouth and nose and pulled up her hareskin coat to cover her neck. Rayna had always thought herself unbothered by cold, but she realized that was because she had never known true cold. Winters in Fenear might have meant frozen lakes, smoky breath, and a half tail-length of snow. That was not cold. This was. This cold burned. She shifted into her wolf form, but even her fur offered little relief. She was not built like the Ice Wolves, thick with muscle and fat and with double coats that caught the air, warming them. She was as Alphena Petrel had said, a southern wolf, made for running along forest paths and beaches, not climbing frozen wastelands. She had been warm enough when traveling alongside Laera and the other dogs, but as the mountain path steepened with each breath, such comfort was a distant memory.
The first leagues of her journey, some shrubs persisted on the steep banks, bowed against the snow and wind. She noted the occasional lemming or stoat tracks, even finding the remains of a sturdy little deer. She cracked the bones and sucked what precious marrow she could force from their frozen confines before moving on. Once the sun had begun to set, though, pouring fields of orange across her blinding blue surroundings, all traces of life disappeared. Rayna did not question why.
The sound had gone from a hum, to a buzz, to a drone, to something far more disconcerting. The wind had dropped off, so she could no longer blame the gusts for it. Even if it had not, she could not ignore the sound any longer. It grew so loud, she re-took human form to escape the pain in her sensitive wolf ears.
It was not one sound, but many, nor were they nameless sounds. They were voices. A thousand voices or more, some whispering, some singing, others laughing, and still others screaming. Two impulses warred within her. One was to clasp her hands over her ears and run downhill until the voices dissolved back into an unknowable murmur. The second, stronger drive pulled her upward, hands balled at her sides, paying no heed to the fading light. The farther she went, the clearer the voices became, until she could make out words, and even, to her combined horror and delight, recognize the owners of some of them.
Her mother sang a lullaby Rayna had forgotten. “Sleep now, little pup, don’t wake 'til the sun is up. Sleep now, little dear, you have nothing at all left to fear…”
She heard Thera telling the story of the first wolves, “Wolnor created the wolves using a drop of blood from every creature and a bead of sap from every tree, for the wolf is the forest’s spirit and its keeper. He gave them the
courage and strength of a bear, the grace of a dove, and the wisdom of a great oak. But he also had to give them three curses–blood-lust, fear, and vengeance–to ensure balance and to appease his brother, Razorn, Lord of Shadows…”
Out of the flood she picked out dozens of familiar voices–Bayne, Silver, Channon, Roxen, Mina, Kellan. Rhael called her a filthy animal, and Gar's howl cut through the air. There were hundreds more she did not know. They swirled around her in a constant din, and though it was impossible to understand every voice, some came across more clearly than others.
“Rise sister, for you have now been Awakened.”
“Now! It has to be now! Slayde, I love you!”
“Mother! Please, don’t hurt her! Don’t you see why she had to lie?”
“Miss Dell, I presume?” In answer: “Aye, but Ayalah is fine.”
“You used it on someone close to the seer? Is that wise when she is one of the few capable of breaking it?”
Rayna did not realize she had stopped moving until her knees folded onto the hard, cold ground. Still she crawled on, pulled forward by some unexplained force. She was not thinking about reaching the summit, or about how she would save Channon. The voices filled every cavity in her skull, echoing, singing, resonating.
“You have to let me go! Please, I’m begging you!”
“NO! I can’t. This isn’t fair. It was supposed to be me. Not you!”
“Water will run with wolf once more.”
“Too late, I am afraid, Davin Dantes.”
“Rayna Myana, kin of Lumae, how far you have come.”
The last voice was different from the others. It cracked her eardrums like a physical blow, sending her sprawling. She slid across the icy snow, now an inky blue, and stopped herself only a tail-length away from falling off the path’s edge. Rayna scrambled to her feet, sprinting up the mountain. The voices hurt, but the irresistible force urged her higher. She craved the voices and the mountain. It was as if her whole life, some piece of her had been missing, as though she had been without a limb for seventeen years and only now realized it. She was incomplete, and only the voices could make her whole.
Rayna fell more than once, ripping her clothing and scraping her knees. But she did not heed the pain or the blood she left behind. Higher, she had to climb higher. Some dormant part of her brain, the part still aware of her surroundings and her body, panicked as the air thinned. A gust of icy wind blew off her scarf and hat, but she could not stop to retrieve them. Her body did not listen to her mind's fading protests that she would die without protection from the cold. It was not long until her lips were blue. Tears of pain and exultation formed frozen diamonds on her lashes, fusing them in a permanent squint. She would not stop running until she reached the top, but she would die before she did. Still, the voices rang out, slurring together.
“Kin-of-my-love-answers-or-outcomes-worth-having-do-not-happen-easily.” And, “You-are-no-son-of-mine!”
“Goodbye-and-may-the-Father's-light-shine-upon-you.”
It was too much–the altitude, the cold, the voices, and that incessant longing most of all. She fell once more, rolling onto her back, panting for air. The moon shone high above, but the sky had turned a predawn blue. Almost the entire night had gone by without her noticing. Her body was too exhausted to move, but the drive urged her to climb higher, to let the voices consume her until she was nothing but a scream on the wind. Instead, she twisted to the side and vomited. She felt feverish, and sweat turned to ice chips clinging to her skin. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, the voices melted away, until there were only two.
Rayna blinked, surprised that she could. Her lashes no longer stuck together. She breathed, finding the air rich and sweet, if still cool. She was still at the Eye of Heaven, but stood now instead of curling into a shivering ball. She was not alone. Two figures stood guard over her shoulders. The first was a man taller than she, with long black hair, a face so beautiful it was almost frightening, and a pair of ocean-blue eyes. Her other companion was a woman Rayna's height. Her hair was white, reaching past her hips in loose waves. Her slim build was muscular, her face cut in sharp, appealing angles. Her eyes were sharpest of all: the yellow-green, dark-lidded eyes of a wolf. Alvo and Lumae, half the quartet of demigods Rayna knew as the Four Wanderers, the founders of Alvorn and Fenear, and the guides who had entered her dreams for months, leading her here.
“Rayna.” Alvo broke the silence. “You have come so far.” Distantly, she remembered that voice she'd heard as she'd run: How far you’ve come. “In days long past, it was the birthright of every seer to visit this place, to open their souls, already hovering so close to the veil, to the full force of the Eye, to life and eternity.”
Lumae took over as seamlessly as if they were one being. “But so was it also the solemn duty of those who protected the seers to take them down the mountain before they climbed too high, lest they be lost to the veil and the voices singing from it.”
Alvo cupped Rayna’s face in one hand, taking his lover’s hand with the other. “You have touched the edge of that which separates the realms, that which runs through all time and space, and in so doing, you have Awakened your true potential. For every ancient seer who had made this pilgrimage before you, that was enough.”
“You have a dual purpose, Rayna. A calling beyond ancient traditions. You come here not to Awaken your abilities, but for the purest, most divine reason of all.” Lumae’s yellow-green eyes flitted to Alvo. “You come here for love.”
“Channon.” Saying his name felt like a betrayal; in her lust for the voices, she had forgotten his suffering. “I come for Channon.”
“To reach him,” said Alvo, “you must not only approach the veil, you must pass through it.”
Lumae stepped back and gestured toward the summit. At least a half-league of winding path and a sheer rock face stood between them and the mountain’s zenith.
“When Rhael Demetrian cast the Sionic Hex, he pierced a hole through the veil, sending Channon’s living soul into the entrance of Razorn’s realm. Such magic has not been cast in millennia, and I fear what it portends. Now is not the time to concern ourselves with what comes. We send you on to reach the summit.”
“But before we do,” Alvo continued, “you must understand what you are risking. You may fall prey to the veil's temptation. If you do, you will die; you are almost dying now.” Alvo stepped aside, revealing Rayna’s sleeping body, curved against the cold. “You may make it through the veil, only to be lost at the Mouth of Hell itself. If you die in either of these ways, your immortal soul will never know the light of Wolnor’s Forest. You risk not only your life, but your afterlife, Rayna Myana.”
Alvo’s words, and the sight of her near-frozen body, shocked Rayna back to the cold surrounding her. If she failed, not only would she die, but she would never see her family again. She would be cursed, either to some fractured existence between realms, or to the very Hell in which Channon suffered.
But Channon was suffering. His immortal soul was cursed because of her. He had risked everything to save her. If she abandoned him out of selfish fear, she would be lost anyway. She had to save him, or be lost trying. As Lumae had said, she came here for love, and she would not leave without it.
“Tell me what to do.”
Lumae and Alvo exchanged a look. Smiling sadly, Lumae took Rayna’s hand. “We will shield you from the voices of the veil as best we can, though they will still call to you. When you awake, only a moment will have passed, but your exhaustion will be eased, though the sickness will continue. Climb, my child, climb as quickly as you can but rest, also. Once you reach the summit, another will appear to you. Once you wake, though, you will be alone.”
“Except for the voices.”
“Except for the voices.” Alvo nodded. “Are you ready?”
Rayna was thrust back into her aching, dizzy body. Some of the exhaustion was indeed gone, though the cold still singed her nerves. The voices had dulled to a quiet roar.
She knew if she concentrated, she could hear the words once more. But if she did, she would be under their spell, and this time Alvo and Lumae could not free her. Willing herself to consider the voices as just the wind, she stood, wiped her mouth, and continued at a more sustainable pace.
It was soon day, and the sun warmed her enough to keep frostbite and hypothermia at bay. It also turned the snow-covered mountain into a near-blinding sheet of white. Rayna tore a strip of leather from her coat's lining and wrapped it around her eyes. Her field of vision was limited, but she would not go snow blind. It was a trick Kellan had taught her, and she felt a rush of gratitude.
The voices chipped at her relentlessly, drawing her in with the occasional whisper she recognized, begging her to listen and let go. Every time, she turned her gaze forward, her thoughts on Channon. At first, she imagined what it would be like to see him again, but found that as frightening as it was inspiring. It had been months, and there was no telling what he had been through because of her, and whether or not he would forgive her. So instead she thought of him as she remembered him. She saw him running wolf-formed on the hunting trails, carrying their kills back to the Densite. She pictured his smile, his dimples and crinkling cornflower blue eyes. She heard him laugh, smelled his leather and pine scent. When the voices began to twist those images, to force her to see him screaming instead, she re-doubled her efforts. She pictured not only Channon, but Roxen next to him, clasping his shoulder. She thought of Bayne and Silver sitting beside the fire pit. Bayne kissed her aunt’s cheek, ruffling Rayna’s hair. She pictured running with Gar and the other True Wolves she knew best: Pike, Ash, Lark, Lichen, River, Hawk, Sorrel, and more. She thought of home, and when she recalled Channon’s arms around her, his chin tucked over her head, the twitch of his bristles as he whispered in her ear, the heat of his cheeks when she relaxed in his embrace, she knew she'd found it. The voices could not reach her there, not when she was with him. She loved him, and she needed him to know that.
Hex Breaker (The Fenearen Chronicles Book 1) Page 28