"I agree with Jessith," Belle said from a few paces ahead. She had become adept at filling in Jessith's portions of our conversations even though she couldn't understand them. "An explanation would be useful right about now. We can't just stop at someone's house and ask for directions to the rebellion, either. Remember what happened to Cate?"
"What a cheerful thing to bring up," I muttered. It was disconcerting to realize we couldn't be far from the place where Cate had been abducted and transformed into a wyr. The great Forest separating Amendyr and Seria had only one road, and travelers who left the path rarely found their way back again. It was so large and wild that it didn't have a name, and it had singlehandedly prevented Serian troops from conquering the western half of the continent centuries ago.
"She has a point," Jessith said. "It was stupid of him to be so cryptic."
"Cieran is far from stupid. I'm sure he had his reasons," I insisted. "Besides, the letter read like he scrawled it out seconds before Mogra's creatures stormed the palace. He might have run out of time."
Even Jessith didn't have a response. We travelled in silence for another few minutes, and my thoughts drifted to dark places. I hoped Cieran, his wife, and Prince Brendan had been able to escape the palace, but it wasn't likely. Brendan would never leave his home undefended, and Cieran was sworn to protect him. My friend's letter had read like a goodbye.
"Don't worry, Ellie," Neva said, jolting me from my thoughts. She was so quiet most of the time that I was always startled when she spoke, even though she was tucked into the circle of my arms. "Cieran will be fine."
"How did you know what I was thinking about?" I asked in surprise. "Are you a seer as well as a necromancer?"
Neva glanced back over her shoulder and shook her head. "No. But he promised me he would be, before he sent me away."
My heart clenched. "How long were you with him?"
"Almost a year. He told people I was his niece, made up a story about how his sister married a man from Shezad and sent me to Seria for an education." A soft smile crossed her dark face, one of the first I had seen. It made her look like a little girl instead of an exhausted miniature adult, and I smiled back. "He and Cassandra helped me with my training. They taught me about speaking the dead to rest."
"What do you mean?"
"I know what she means," Belle said. "Most Serian stories about necromancers are cautionary tales, but in Amendyr, not all Kira'baas raise the dead. Some of them use their powers to un-make creatures like the kerak. I read about it in—"
"the library," I finished for her with a sly look. "Is there a single book you haven't read?"
Belle sighed. "I'm going to miss it while we're gone. If I come back to find it destroyed, I'll make Luciana regret it."
"You'll have to fight Cate for the chance."
"Cate can help me. Having a wolf on my side against an undead monster would only help."
"Is your friend really a wolf?" Neva asked. "Can you talk to her like Jessith?"
"Not exactly. She can become one if she wants to, but she spends most of her time as a human."
Neva's face brightened with understanding. "Oh, a wyr?"
I shouldn't have been surprised. Neva had grown up in Amendyr, after all, where such things were unusual but not unheard of. "Yes, she's a wyr. She's also a member of the rebellion, and I think her pack might be the people we're looking for."
"Well, they're not the people we've found," Jessith said from behind me. "There's something moving in the trees, and it doesn't smell like dog."
I urged Brahms to slow his pace, scanning the Forest to try and spot the mysterious figures Jessith was talking about.
"You don't have to be so obvious," she drawled. "Perhaps you should read one of Belle's precious books once in a while. Maybe a dictionary? The word 'subtle' comes to mind."
I ignored her reproach and kept looking. This time, I saw something—a flash of movement, low to the ground like an animal. I almost spoke up to tell Jessith she had been wrong, but before I got the chance, rustling came from all sides. There was more than one of whatever was following us, and they didn't seem concerned about staying hidden.
"Ellie, should I run?" Brahms asked, haunches tensing.
My mind was made up for me as our pursuers left the cover of the trees and stepped into the middle of the road. They weren't animals, but they weren't human either, and the sight of them was so strange I stared for several seconds. Seven short, blocky figures stood shoulder to shoulder, wearing hoods that cast their faces in shadow. From the little I could see from their bare hands and feet, their flesh was a pallid grey color. Although they were small, their shoulders were thick and broad, and they seemed muscular. Their feet were abnormally large and flat, sticking out awkwardly from beneath their robes. All of them were armed, although they made no move to attack us.
"Dwarves," Belle whispered beside me, barely able to contain her excitement. She stared in fascination, wearing the same expression that came upon her in the middle of a good book.
"How do you know?”
"I've seen illustrations, but why are they here? They almost never come to the surface."
One of the dwarves lowered his hood, revealing his face. His eyes were smaller than coppers, black and beetle-like, and they blinked against the faint sunlight. The rest of his face was almost all mouth. It was wet and large, with several rows of teeth and two giant tusks. His tongue threatened to poke out as he spoke in a scraping voice. "You. Sun-hair. Off thing." He pointed at Brahms, who canted back a few nervous steps. Corynne tossed her head, whickering, and Belle had to stroke her neck to calm her.
I wasn't prepared to leave Brahms' back. The dwarves hadn't drawn their weapons, but that didn't mean they were friendly, either. While I stayed perched in relative safety, Neva scrambled to the ground, leaping down before I could hold her back. She let out a cry of joy and ran forward, arms open.
"Ulig, you came!" She squeezed the dwarf in a tight hug, smiling gleefully.
To my shock, the creature hugged her back. His enormous mouth warped into something like a smile, and he lifted her a few inches off the ground even though they were the same height, twirling her around. "Neva! Back, you!"
"Well, I guess that means it's safe to get down." Belle slid off Corynne and approached the group cautiously, hanging a few yards back. I followed her example, and as we watched, all the dwarves took a turn hugging Neva. It was strange, seeing the withdrawn girl we had spent the past few days with so exuberantly happy, but also touching. These people were her friends, and they seemed just as relieved to see her as she was to see them.
One of the dwarves turned toward us, and it, too, pulled back its hood. Its features were slightly different, with smaller tusks jutting out from between its thick lips, and it took me a moment to realize that this one was female. Up close, I could tell her grey skin was actually covered in soft, downy fuzz. "Hello," she said. "My name is Lok. That's my husband Ulig, and this is our clan. I believe you must be Eleanor and Belladonna?"
I nodded dumbly. Considering the first dwarf's rough, broken speech, I hadn't expected one of their number to speak such good Serian. She had a bit of an accent, but I had no trouble understanding her.
"Good! The three of us have a mutual friend. I'm the one who sent Neva to stay in Seria with Cieran. We hated to let her go, but we all agreed she would be safer among her own kind."
“Wait,” I asked, “Neva stayed with you before she came to Ronin?”
“Yes,” Lok said.
“Why didn’t she tell us?”
Lok continued staring. “Did you ask her?”
“No,” I said, a little hesitantly.
“I didn’t realize we specifically needed to ask her if she used to run around with a band of wild dwarves,” Jessith muttered. Yet again, I was grateful no one else could understand her.
The other dwarves had stopped hugging Neva, and they all turned to study us. Some looked wary, but Neva hastened to reassure them. She spoke to t
hem in Amendyrri, and her lilting voice seemed to put them at ease. They stared up at us from beneath their hoods, shuffling forward on their large feet and studying us with unconcealed curiosity. I did not blame them. Surely they found me just as interesting as I found them.
"They can't understand Serian, I'm afraid, and they don't speak much Amendyrri either," Lok said. "Ulig knows a bit of both, but I'll have to be your translator."
"That's all right," Belle said, smiling. "It's nice to meet you. Cieran told us we would find friends across the border, but I wasn't expecting dwarves."
Ulig frowned around his tusks, and Lok cleared her throat a little awkwardly. "Actually, we prefer to be called dwellyn. That's the name of our people. 'Dwarves' are a Serian invention."
Belle's face fell, and she seemed horrified by her mistake. "I'm so sorry," she began, but Lok brushed her off.
“You didn't know. Anyway, we should hurry. There are eyes and ears everywhere in the Forest, and we need to get underground before they find us."
"That might be a problem," I said, eyeing the horses.
Lok's big, messy grin grew wider. Her velvety face crinkled around her tiny eyes. "You've never seen a dwellyn warren, have you? There's plenty of room for the horses. We might be smaller than humans, but we work big." She nodded at Ulig, and he spoke to the others in a gurgling sort of speech I couldn't understand. It wasn't Amendyrri, and I suspected it was the dwellyn's own language.
The dwellyn stopped staring at us and formed two ordered lines, with Ulig at their head. He nodded at us. "Sun-hair. Night-hair. Come, you. And things." He pointed at the horses with a stubby hand, and I grabbed Brahms' reins while Belle took Corynne.
"I object to being called a thing," Jessith said from my knapsack.
I sighed. "Isn't this what you wanted? To find the friends Cieran was talking about?"
"I didn't expect them to be so…earthy. The dirt's staining my whiskers from here."
"Well, you don't have a choice." I started off after the dwarves, ignoring Jessith's grumbling and falling into step beside Neva. For once, she wasn't silent. She chattered away to the dwellyn in long, flowing Amendyrri sentences, skipping up and down the line to speak to them all.
"How do you think she came to be with them?" I asked Belle.
She offered a shrug. "No idea. We'll have to ask later. From what Lok said, it sounds like they took her in after she left Kalmarin. However she ended up with them, it must be an interesting story."
"It's about to get more interesting," I said. Some of Belle's enthusiasm was running off on me. "How big do you think a dwellyn city is, exactly?"
"Huge," Belle said. "Dwa…er, dwellyn live in colonies. There can be hundreds of them in one place."
"Good thing they're friendly. If there are so many of them, and they're friends with Neva, do you think Jett Bahari and the rebellion could use them?"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Belle said. "For now, it's enough that they want to help us."
We fell into comfortable silence as the dwellyn led us off the path and into the Forest. Eventually, Neva drifted back to us, and I was surprised but pleased when she reached out for my hand. We walked with our arms swinging between us. "You're going to love them, Ellie. I know they look scary at first, but they're really sweet. Gurn makes the best deeproot pies, and Rup knows how to forge swords, and…"
I couldn't keep track of all the names and professions, but I was happy for her happiness. It was a blessed relief from the constant tension and strain of the past several days. I smiled and let my shoulders relax. For once, I would have something positive to write in my next letter to Cate. I had no doubt that she would find the dwellyn as fascinating as Belle and I did.
Chapter Eight
Taken from the letters of Cathelin Raybrook, edited by Lady Eleanor Kingsclere
The ghostly woman with the golden crown stands before the mirror. She runs her hand along it, lips parted, sipping shallow breaths. She can feel its hunger. Can feel it seeping through her skin, burrowing into the pit of her stomach, clawing out a screaming ache. It burns hot to the touch, fire against her icy hands, but she can't pull away. She needs this pain. Needs it like food or water or air.
"Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?"
The glass ripples like a living thing. It flashes. Her eyes are caught.
You, my queen, are fair; it's true.
But the princess beyond the Forest
Is still a thousand times fairer than you.
Her anger blazes within her, ripping out through the scream that tears her throat. The girl must die. Must die so that she may satisfy the never-ending hunger, so that she may serve her purpose.
The mirror grows large, devouring everything. It swallows the woman, the room, the castle, the entire world. Inside its depth, the sliver of a white dress flutters. A girl with dark skin is running. She stumbles through the forest on bare feet, face streaked with tears. Shadows scurry around her, closing in, forming a circle.
Another face, already dying. Beauty decaying, reeking of sweet rot, cracked strips of black-grey flesh crumbling away. The cruel tilt of its mouth is chillingly familiar. Matted chestnut hair, burning eyes—
I jolted awake, drenched in sweat, clawing at the covers beneath me and shivering all over. For a moment, I was certain she had come for me. Certain she was hovering over me, just as she had so many times before. I waited for pain, but it never came. There was only the burning of my lungs as I struggled to breathe and the aching hammer of my wild heart.
I didn't come back to myself until Larna stirred beside me. She reached out, eyes blurry with sleep, and stroked a hand along my tense stomach. "Little bird?" I tried to speak, but my words stubbornly refused to come. I could only manage a strangled sort of sob that broke somewhere in my stopped-up throat. Larna sat up and folded her arm around my shoulder. "Her again?" she asked, her soft voice not demanding an answer.
It was an effort even to nod my head, but I didn't have to say anything. Larna held me until the shaking ceased and the knot in my chest stopped hurting. My body was completely drained, but my mind raced in circles. The Queen. The dark-skinned girl. Luciana. The visions were of the past, but they were also happening now. The Queen was using Luciana to hunt the girl, but for what? I had felt her drive, a hunger so strong one person could scarcely hold it.
"Cate, sweetling," Larna whispered, her lips warm against my temple, "is there anything to be doing now? At this moment?"
The sound of my Tuathe’s voice brought me back to myself. I wasn’t in the dark room. Luciana and the Queen were nowhere to be found. We were still safe in Ardu, in the room the liarre had given us, as far away from danger as possible. "No." My lips were thick around the word, numb as I moved them. "There's nothing I can do right now."
"Then sleep." Larna began to stroke my hair, and the steady petting slowed my frantic heartbeat. "Sleep until the sun comes, at least."
As exhausted as I was, the thought of sleep terrified me. My visions didn't only happen at night, but that didn't matter. If I closed my eyes, they might come flooding back. "I don't think I can," I whispered. The nightmares in my head were all twisted up in black memories, and I struggled to tell them apart. I flinched, remembering a bookcase digging into my back, the tear of fabric.
Once again, Larna brought me back. "How can I be helping you?" she asked, and when I looked up into her face, Luciana's faded. I couldn't stand her presence in my mind. I had kept her safely tucked away for so long, and despite the chaos around me, I had never been stronger. Now, I threatened to buckle under the weight. I gripped Larna's hands tight and leaned further into her, blinking back tears. The nights in Ardu were frigid, but her body was hot against mine where we touched, and it banished some of the cold.
Suddenly, I remembered her offer. “If you want to forget her touch with mine, I will be helping you. If you are needing anything...”
The shred of normalcy I felt as I imagined Larna against me, ove
r me, in me, was an instant relief. She was my anchor to the present, to the person I had grown into. With her love surrounding me, the past couldn't touch me and the future couldn't frighten me. "Larna." She held my eyes, searching them for answers, waiting for me to tell her what to do. "I need you to help me forget."
Larna cupped my cheek, searching my eyes for any signs of doubt. “Be you sure?”
“Yes. Her face isn’t the one I want to see when I close my eyes.” My memories of Luciana had faded almost to nothing since my arrival in Amendyr, and I was resentful that my visions had dredged them up again. It wasn’t fair that she still held so much power over me. I was supposed to be free.
Larna nodded. “Then guide my hands. I will be giving you whatever you need.”
The thought of Larna's hands made me smile. They were large, rough-textured and square-shaped, but gentle when I needed them to be. The touch resting on my face was feather-light. I threaded my fingers through hers again, bringing her hand away from my cheek and guiding it toward my lips. My eyes drifted shut as I brushed a kiss across her knuckles. "I love you," I murmured into her skin. "I love you so much, Tuathe. I love you endlessly."
"I love you, too."
Words fell away as Larna's mouth took the place of her fingers. It was a careful, cautious kiss, a request instead of a demand. I savored its sweetness at first, allowing Larna's lips to rest on mine. But I had grown to adore the demands Larna made of me, and I had learned to enjoy placing demands on her. She had asked me to guide her hands, and I could think of nothing I needed more.
I brought our linked fingers down, sliding Larna's hand down until her palm rested on the bare skin of my stomach. It hesitated there instead of moving, and I wasn't sure whether to be grateful or frustrated. I hadn't realized Larna's offer to let me lead had been quite so literal. "I'll show you what I need, but I don't want you to be passive," I murmured, nipping at her lower lip. Her fingers twitched along my abdomen, but otherwise, she remained perfectly still. "I want you to take me until there isn't room inside my body or my head for anyone else."
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