Eolyn

by Karin Rita Gastreich

  Akmael wore a simple but finely woven linen shirt, reminiscent of the one he had worn the day they first met in the South Woods. The dark curls of his youth had grown back, and they were bound loosely at the nape of his neck. His broad shoulders were relaxed, his strong hands spread upon the table. His bearing, which gave testimony to his place in the line of Vortingen, filled Eolyn with conflicting emotions of apprehension and pride.

  The King looked up. The intensity of his focus made Eolyn catch her breath, though it was clear by his expression that her arrival pleased him.

  “Maga Eolyn,” he said. “You are well.”

  “Yes, thank you, Achim…Akmael…my Lord, King.” She lowered her eyes, embarrassed by the confusion of names that stumbled from her lips.

  Corey and the other mage took their quiet leave.

  “Please.” The King extended his arm, inviting her to approach. A smile touched his lips.

  She remembered how much she enjoyed seeing him smile as a boy, how hard it was to get him to do it at first. Though she longed to close the distance between them, she stopped just beyond his reach. Her hands worked against each other in nervous agitation.

  “I wanted to tell you I am deeply grateful for what you did, bringing me back. I understand what it could have cost you, and I am glad no harm came to you in retrieving me. I will…” She drew a breath and steadied her hands. “I will set forth for the South Woods in a few days. I wish to rest there, perhaps the winter through. My magic was drained by the journey to the Underworld, and the battle…” She flushed. By the Gods, why did she have to mention it?

  “But you will return?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course, I…” She shifted on her feet. This was not the response she had expected, that she was free to go. “Mage Corey told me the prohibition has been lifted. So there is much work to do. There will be students to teach. Many women, I hope. The magic of this land has been so unraveled. It will take a long time to weave it all back together.” Her gaze drifted to the table as she spoke. Absently, she picked up an oval object. It fit comfortably in the palm of her hand, and she realized it was a portrait of a young woman. “Who is this?”

  Akmael cleared his throat. “The first princess of Roenfyn. One of many candidates I have been discussing with High Mage Tzetobar.”

  Eolyn set the portrait down carefully. Her fingers were numb.

  “The duty of a King,” she murmured.

  “Alliances must be forged, an heir to the throne secured.” He spoke without emotion, as if the matter did not directly concern him.

  “So you will marry her?”

  “I have not yet decided with whom we will initiate negotiations. Roenfyn has its advantages. It is a neighboring kingdom that offers important territorial gains, and our people share a common history. But there are other possibilities. The Mountain People or the Syrnte, for example, both with magical traditions that could serve us well.”

  “You just banished them from our territory, and now you speak of alliances?”

  “I threw out their hostile armies, but as Mage Tzetobar would be quick to tell you, war must be followed by diplomacy else it will soon engender more war. If the Mountain People and the Syrnte have designs over our territory, it would do well to consider abating their hunger with a royal marriage.”

  “They did not come to conquer us. They came to assist Ernan and his cause.”

  Akmael touched her chin and brought her gaze to his. He studied her face for several moments, his expression at once puzzled and amused. “I think what caught my heart on that first day was your capacity to trust so readily, to believe the best of others, even of me. Ghemena worked hard to train you out of it, but she never quite succeeded, did she?”

  “My instinct toward trust has little to do with this. I knew them. Khelia. Tahmir. Rishona.”

  “And I did not.” He released her and stepped away. “It is my responsibility, as King, to question their motives in joining this rebellion. You, I am quite certain, were driven by your ideals and by your love for your brother. But they? Why would they send their warriors to die on our battlefields?”

  “You think they would so use me?” The insinuation aroused her anger.

  “You, and your brother. Yes.” He stiffened, and his eyes grew hard. “High Mage Tzetobar will appoint a group of emissaries soon, first to the Paramen Mountains and then to the land of the Syrnte. I could arrange for you to accompany them. Given your ample…experience with their people, your assistance could prove useful.”

  “Akmael, I am not interested in—”

  “Perhaps you will find another Syrnte Prince to your liking.” Resentment colored his voice. “Would that please you, Eolyn?”

  She bristled. “You have no right to question my relationship with him! You knew nothing about him.”

  “I know a king is always a king in his own land. What you hoped to escape by refusing me, you would have found by accepting him.”

  “Akmael, I had no more desire to be a Syrnte Princess then I do the Queen of Moisehén! All I wanted…” She faltered. All I wanted was you. “I felt so alone. You were gone, and he was there, and I…I needed him. I needed someone to love. That was all.”

  Her confession did nothing to diminish his look of displeasure. When he drew an impatient breath to respond, Eolyn noticed a glint of silver upon his chest. In an instant, she closed the distance between them, eyes fixed on the parting fold of his shirt. She set her fingers over the finely woven jewel that hung around his neck, mesmerized by the light caught in its many crystals.

  “This is what you used to find me!” she realized, astonished. “Where did you get it?”

  Akmael went still under her touch. “My mother crafted it and gave it to me as a gift.”

  “Why have I not seen it before now? Why did you not show it to me?”

  “It was my secret, my only remembrance of her. I was accustomed to not sharing it with anyone.”

  “If only it had been revealed to me sooner.” Saddened, Eolyn withdrew, but Akmael stopped her, catching her fingers in his hand. The charge of his touch unsettled her.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “This is ancient magic of the magas, one of the few spells they held in secret. Its existence was never recorded in the annals. Ghemena told me about it, though she did not have time to teach me how to weave it before she died. The object allows its user to find a friend at great distances, but it will not work unless the intentions of the seeker are true and pure.”

  “My intentions have always been true,” he said, “though it would be an exaggeration to say they were always pure.”

  “What I don’t understand is how it worked. I mean, once you found me in the South Woods, it must have imprinted on my essence in order to allow you to come again, but how did you arrive the first time? Your mother knew nothing of me—had nothing of me—that could have been woven into this web.”

  Then the truth came to her like summer rain seeping into the soft earth, a slow realization carried on the voice of the dark haired witch who appeared in her dreams so long ago.

  You are not the one I sought, little Eolyn, but you are the one who was found.

  “Briana meant for you to find Ghemena!” she said. “Your mother must have had something of my tutor. She must have somehow known Ghemena survived. She wanted Ghemena to train you, but this magic could not penetrate the ward of her refuge. It landed you just outside the enchanted forest, and you found me instead.”

  Eolyn withdrew from Akmael’s grasp, her voice reduced to a whisper. “Oh, Akmael, everything you could have learned from her! All the opportunities that were lost because I stood in the way!”

  “That’s not true.” He stepped forward and gathered her face in his hands, igniting a tremor in the deepest part of her spirit.

  I had it all wrong. All backwards.

  “But you don’t understand!” Eolyn said. “My family interfered with your destiny, right from the very beginning. I kept you from Ghemena, though I did
n’t know what I was doing, and my brother tried to slay you, and my…” Eolyn hesitated, keenly aware of the formidable power that coursed through Akmael’s hands, the ease with which he might crush her skull. “The woman who killed your mother…”

  Absolute stillness descended upon him, like the silence that precedes a violent storm.

  Eolyn closed her eyes, tears brimming on her lashes, certain he was about to strike.

  “The woman who killed your mother,” she whispered.

  “I know who she was, Eolyn,” he said. “I know who she was to you.”

  That was all. Just these words, and then silence.

  Eolyn opened her eyes and stared at him, bewildered.

  “During the battle of Aerunden,” Akmael said, “I recognized her in Ernan’s face.”

  She did not know how to respond. Was this the source of the mindless fury that overtook him during the confrontation with her brother? Was that why he fought Ernan with such indomitable wrath? And if yes, then why…?

  “Then why am I still here?” she asked.

  Sadness invaded his eyes, and his brow furrowed. For a moment he looked like Achim again, like the boy who spent all afternoon looking in vain for the elusive rainbow snail. A child who could not endure the loss of the one treasure he had never quite found.

  “Because I love you, Eolyn,” he said. “Because I cannot envision this kingdom without you.”

  Her spirit unfolded at these words. The room shifted and transformed around them. Rich and varied aromas of the South Woods rose from the stone floor, of bitter earth and crushed pine, of rotting wood and wild roses. She heard wind rushing through trees, birds intent upon their song, crickets chirping in the night, the river roaring in springtime.

  She took Akmael’s fingers and pressed her lips to them, to the broad palm of his hand, to the tender skin of his wrist. Her kisses coursed over the hard lines of his face before penetrating the sensual depths of his lips. Her desire flared like a rose colored flame, and she melted into him as he wrapped his arms around her.

  Just beyond the heat of their embrace, Eolyn heard the closing of heavy doors and the soft hiss of a magic seal.

  Was it a trap? She did not care. She wanted only to love him, to love him always.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Rebirth

  Eolyn felt the tremor of horses’ hooves beneath the earth, followed by a steady shiver that passed up through stems of chamomile and sage. Her fingers lingered on the plants to calm them.

  Will I ever grow used to it, she wondered. Or will this sound always bring the same fleeting sense of childhood terror?

  She stood and wiped her hands on her apron, then shielded her eyes from the sun that dipped low over the horizon. The dense garden shimmered in an amber light, and the fresh voice of a sapling fir whispered on the breeze. From the small circle of buildings that comprised her new home, the ground sloped gently down to a small stream, then up again to continue its rolling descent toward the nearby Town of Moehn.

  A girl pressed close against Eolyn’s skirt and looked up at her. A wisp of ash blond hair fell over her wide hazel eyes. She slipped her small hand into Eolyn’s, her grip strong.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Eolyn gave the girl’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “Look at the far ridge, Ghemena, and tell me what you see.”

  Riders appeared, flowing over the hill in a short column before descending into a shallow valley.

  “Purple banners,” the girl said.

  “And the sigil?”

  “A silver dragon.”

  “They are the King’s men, then.”

  “They frighten me.”

  “Yes, well.” Eolyn smiled. “They frighten me, too, sometimes. But we are under the King’s protection, and these men are sworn to serve him. So we must assume they are friends.”

  Ghemena compressed her lips into a frown, a telltale indication that she was not convinced. The youngest of three who had come to Eolyn in this first year, Ghemena had seen only five summers. She was just as stubborn as Eolyn’s tutor had once been, and just as bright. Like her companions, she was a child of humble origins, whose parents saw the Aekelahr more as an opportunity to keep a cumbersome daughter clothed and fed, than as the birthplace of a new era of women’s magic.

  Eolyn touched the girl’s cheek with affection. “I will greet the King’s men, Ghemena. Go tell your sisters to lay out bread and drink for our guests.”

  As the child ran off, Eolyn retrieved her staff. She synchronized her breath with its steady hum and connected her spirit to the solid earth. In truth, she did not like the look of this. With all the people of Moisehén about to converge upon the King’s City, Akmael’s soldiers had no business in Moehn.

  Eolyn strode forward to put as much distance as possible between them and the Aekelahr. She met them at a stream, where they reined in their horses. Sir Drostan led the company, with Mage Corey at his side. Among the rest were several members of the King’s personal guard.

  “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded as Drostan and Corey dismounted.

  Corey smiled and spread his arms wide in salutation. She reluctantly granted him an embrace.

  Drostan produced a sealed scroll and presented it to her with a bow of respect. “Maga Eolyn, we have orders to escort you on your journey.”

  Puzzled, Eolyn accepted the document and broke the wax seal. Akmael had written the orders in his own hand. The paper bore traces of his essence, the ink an imprint of his aura. Just touching it ignited her desire. She drew a shaky breath and returned the scroll to Drostan. “Thank you, but it’s not necessary. I plan to travel on my own.”

  Corey chuckled. Drostan shifted on his feet, a furrow marking his brow.

  “These are the King’s orders, my lady,” the knight said, as if that settled everything. As if there were nothing further to discuss.

  “I understand, Sir Drostan, and I appreciate this kindness he has extended to me, but this is most unnecessary.”

  “I’d advise you not to refuse the King’s will, Maga Eolyn.” Corey watched with an amused expression, though there was an undercurrent of warning in his voice. “I’ve known Drostan a long time. He will see his liege’s will done, even if it means binding you and throwing you on the back of his horse.”

  Eolyn looked from Corey to Drostan to the men waiting behind them. The truth of Corey’s words was apparent in their faces. Resigned, she nodded her consent and invited them to some food and wine.

  They gave her the remainder of the day to prepare her things, and departed at dawn. Much to Eolyn’s chagrin, Drostan left a handful of men behind under the command of a young knight of Vortingen, a man by the name of Borten, also from Moehn.

  “This is a place of learning, not a fortress,” she objected.

  “They are to look after your students,” Drostan said.

  “I’ve hired a matron for that, to stay with them while I’m in the King’s City.”

  “This is the King’s command,” Drostan replied.

  So it was settled once again.

  The fields of Moehn were lush that year. The summer had brought steady rains and now shades of russet gold spread through ripening crops. Yet the fertile landscape did little to alleviate Eolyn’s discomfort with her forced escort. She had hoped to make this trip in solitude, to chatter with the birds as they gathered in flocks for their journey south, to pray in the Valley of Aerunden where so many had fallen only one short year before.

  During their long days of travel, Drostan kept a respectful distance, but Corey’s conversation was constant and intrusive. The clatter of metal and the smell of warhorse distracted her to no end. When at last they arrived at the King’s City, its turrets adorned with bright banners snapping in the wind, she felt drained and tense and utterly unprepared for the event to come.

  Already people had gathered from all parts of the kingdom, crowding the inns, setting up camps outside the high walls, and filling the streets with vibrant activ
ity. Laughter mingled with sharp aromas of ale, wine, and roasted meats.

  As they rode toward the central square, news of her arrival rippled ahead of them, bringing men, women, and children out to catch a glimpse of the High Maga. They threw lilies in her path, offered gifts of herbs and flowers, and asked for Eolyn’s blessing.

  “The Princess will not be pleased when she hears of this,” Corey remarked. “Her welcome was not nearly as effusive.”

  Eolyn shrugged. “There is no room for jealousy in the heart of a maga.”

  The mage rolled his eyes. “May I remind you Princess Taesara is not a maga. Royal women delight in jealousy. They can’t get enough of it.”

  “This excess of attention is hardly reason for resentment. And it could have been avoided altogether, if the King had not insisted on sending a royal guard.”

  “I grow weary of your lack of gratitude, Maga Eolyn,” Corey replied. “We’ve been through this before. Tzeremond’s companion, Baedon, is still at large, and we cannot underestimate the threat from the Syrnte and the Mountain People.”

  “They would never—”

  “Wouldn’t they? Your value to the King is no secret. There is no better way to hold him hostage than to lay threat to your safety. And there are forces that resist change in our own country. Who knows how many have cause to resent you and what you represent. It is not safe for you to travel unprotected. We will not risk losing you again.”

  “We? Who is ‘we’? You? The King? The great Clan of East Selen?” Her retort came sharper than intended, but after so many days on the dusty road, she was tired and irritable.

  “You may doubt my affection for you,” Corey said tersely, “but you cannot doubt his.”

  Eolyn said nothing to this rejoinder, reluctant to pursue any conversation that touched upon her relationship with the King. She raised her eyes to the fortress above the city and tried once more to envision herself in his world, weighed down by fine dresses and chains of gold, lost in a labyrinth of intrigue she might never comprehend. Her heart retreated from the thought.