Shrouded Sky (The Veils of Lore Book 1)

by A. Akers, Tracy

  “So to speak.”

  “What? You mean—” Chandra shook her head. “No. That’s unthinkable.”

  “Atrocities are common during wartime,” Tygg said. “Every side has its share.”

  “But I thought the war was over. Why are you and Orryn still so hostile to each other?”

  “His kind and mine were bred to hate each other. It is not something we can change overnight.”

  “I don’t get the impression you hate Orryn. A matter of fact, he said he owes you.”

  “He told you that?”

  “He did, and he didn’t sound too thrilled about it.”

  Tygg forced a smile. “Well, I do not plan to collect the debt tonight.”

  “That’s good to know,” Orryn said from the shadows. He stepped toward the fire, one hand securing the blanket around him, the other holding a bundle of wet clothes.

  Tygg rose and took the clothes from him, then draped them on a rock near the fire. “They will dry, but they will be stiff—like your mood,” he said.

  Orryn sat down on the log, but Tygg remained standing.

  “It grows dark. I must hunt,” Tygg said, then glanced at Chandra. “Will you be well while I am gone?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Right, Orryn?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m here. Why wouldn’t you be?”

  “No reason,” Chandra said, recalling, but trying hard to forget, his warm lips on her skin. She turned her attention to Tygg. “We’re fine, really. Go hunt us something to eat, only . . .”

  “Only?” Tygg asked.

  Chandra bit her lip. “Well, I’d really rather not see its face before I eat it, okay?”

  Tygg looked puzzled. “I do not understand.”

  “I don’t like the idea of killing things,” she said.

  “You do not eat meat?” he asked.

  “No, I do. I just don’t do the killing.”

  “Who does?”

  “I don’t know, a butcher or something. Listen,” she said with exasperation. “I just don’t want to see some dead animal’s pitiful face, all right?”

  “Very well,” Tygg said. He turned toward the woods. “I will remove the head first.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The campsite seemed strangely quiet with Tygg no longer in it. All that could be heard was the crackle and pop of the campfire, and the occasional sound of the trees rustling in the breeze.

  Orryn shivered and pulled the blanket tighter.

  “Are you cold?” Chandra asked. “Tygg piled some extra wood over there.”

  “No,” Orryn said. “I’m fine.” He glanced up at her. “Are you cold?”

  “No,” she said. “I just noticed you were shivering.”

  He frowned. “It’s not because of the cold.”

  “What’s wrong with you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “I’m ill,” he said. “That’s why I must reach home soon.”

  “Because there are healers there to help you?” Chandra asked.

  “Yes. Perhaps.”

  Chandra felt a twinge of worry, though she couldn’t imagine why. “What do you mean? It’s not bad is it?”

  “That’s the decision of the Sovereign Lady. She’ll probe my mind to determine—”

  “Probe your mind? What the hell, Orryn?” Chandra felt fear grip her by the throat. The lady he spoke of sounded like no lady, and she was beginning to sound disturbingly familiar. “Tell me about her,” she said, trying to sound calmer than she felt.

  “She’s a powerful leader,” he said. “She has the ability to commune with the gods.”

  “How so?”

  Orryn grabbed a stick and stabbed at the fire, sending sparks funneling into the air. “It’s said she is the offspring of them. She knows how to read souls, to reach into hearts, to learn who’s worthy and who’s not.”

  “I don’t think I’d like someone judging me like that.”

  He shrugged. “All societies are served by the strongest amongst them. She determines our duties, and we carry them out.”

  “What if she assigns someone a duty that goes against their conscience?”

  “Conscience does not matter. Only duty.”

  “Well I have to disagree with you on that. I could never do something I knew was wrong just to appease some leader.”

  Orryn arched an eyebrow. “Could you not?”

  “Of course not!” Chandra said, but she knew the minute she said it, it was a lie. Peer pressure was a terrible thing. “All right. Maybe I did, once. I stole a package of Skittles from the Circle K when I was in the seventh grade.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Skittles are candy; you know, something sweet to eat. I took them and didn’t pay for them.”

  “And the Circle K? Who is that?”

  “Not who, what. It’s a convenience store.”

  Orryn’s face remained blank.

  “It’s like a vendor,” Chandra attempted, “in the marketplace.”

  “Ah, yes. I see.” He narrowed his eyes. “And why did you do this?”

  “To get Sarah Mitchell to accept me into her group. It was stupid.”

  “Indeed it was. You’re lucky you still have your hands. In Syddia such activities are not tolerated.”

  “Thanks for the tip. I’ll be sure not to steal any Skittles while I’m there.” She looked at Orryn. He was staring into the fire and appeared deep in thought.

  “So tell me more of this lady you speak of. You said she would determine if you could be healed. Explain what that means.”

  Orryn sat a little straighter. “I’m a Pedant. Pedants must follow a code of conduct that doesn’t allow emotions to sway us from our duties.”

  “Like military?”

  “Military?”

  “Um . . . soldiers. Warriors.”

  “Yes. Like that.”

  “So no emotions are allowed.”

  “Correct.”

  “Ever? Or just while you’re on duty?”

  “Ever.”

  Chandra thought back on recent events. Orryn had shown emotion on a few occasions: anger, frustration, maybe even jealousy. Is that what he meant when he said he was ill? Surely no man could be void of emotion all the time. It wasn’t human.

  “That’s not possible,” Chandra insisted. “Emotion is part of who we are.”

  “Yes, but for a Pedant it must be stifled.”

  “No one can be completely without emotion. No one who’s flesh and blood at least.”

  “You’re wrong. The Sovereign has found a way.”

  “Even if that were true, why? How does that help you be a better warrior?”

  Orryn looked at her as if she were a fool. “Many times throughout history emotion has gotten in the way of duty: A king does not kill a traitorous brother; a warrior does not slay his enemy on the battlefield.”

  “So you’re saying if you and Tygg were on the battlefield, you’d slay him.”

  “I would.”

  Chandra huffed. “I don’t believe you.” Or maybe she did but refused to admit it.

  “He speaks true,” Tygg said, emerging from the trees with two headless rabbits dangling from his fists. “It would be his duty to do so.”

  “That doesn’t mean he would,” Chandra countered.

  “To do otherwise would break my oath,” Orryn said. “Of course I would do it.”

  “Tygg wouldn’t kill you, though. Would you, Tygg?”

  Tygg and Orryn glanced at each other.

  “Oh, I see,” Chandra said. “Tygg spared your life on the battlefield, so now you owe him.”

  “Yes,” Orryn said. “How convenient for Tygg.”

  Tygg laughed. “Yes, it was most convenient.”

  “So why are you friends exactly?” Chandra asked.

  “Yes, Or’n,” Tygg said. “Why are we?”

  “I wouldn’t call us friends,” Orryn said. “I would say we’re enemies who tolerate each other.”

  Chandra sig
hed. “And here I am in the middle.”

  Tygg dropped the rabbits onto the ground and went to work on them. Chandra’s eyes widened at the purple globs spilling out of the rabbits’ bellies. “I think I’ll lie down,” she said. She rose and stepped away, then added over her shoulder, “Let me know when dinner no longer looks like Thumper turned inside out.”

  She hobbled to the nearby bedrolls and spread one out, then lay upon it, staring up at the sky. She drew a sharp breath. Never before had she seen a night sky like this! Stars were everywhere, as if they had multiplied from the hundreds into the tens of billions. Even the background around them looked different. It was black, true black, not the inky gray of the world she was used to. Now she knew she was no longer in the real world. She was here, where the air was clean and clear, and the sky was not veiled by city lights and pollutants.

  “They’re so beautiful,” she said with awe. “And there are so many.”

  “The stars?” Tygg asked.

  Chandra looked at him, noting he had already fashioned a spit and was now in the process of roasting their headless dinner.

  Tygg rose from his knees and wiped his hands down his leathers. “Aye. They are many, each one unique.”

  Chandra turned her gaze back to the sky. “Something’s different about them here though.”

  “Oh?”

  Chandra’s eyes drifted over the stars. What was it that was different about them, she wondered, other than the infinite number of them? They were breathtakingly beautiful, yes, but there was something else. It was as if they were sending some kind of energy, connecting her to a sparkling web of molecules. She reached out her hand to them. “It’s like I can touch them, but I can’t.”

  Tygg took a step toward her. “Will you watch the meat, Or’n?” he said to him over his shoulder.

  “Why?” Orryn asked.

  “She questions the stars. Should not one of us teach her?”

  “And I suppose you should be the one to do it?”

  Tygg swept an arm toward her. “Feel free, Or’n.”

  Orryn huffed and turned his eyes back to the fire. “Teach her what you wish,” he grumbled. “Just don’t lie to her.”

  “I would ask the same of you.” Tygg stepped to Chandra’s bedroll and squatted down beside her. “Where do you look?” he asked, turning his face to the sky.

  Chandra pointed her finger. “There,” she said, though she didn’t know what “there” was. The sky was so full of stars and galaxies, she couldn’t identify a single constellation. Cassiopeia, the Dippers, Hercules . . . all were invisible to her.

  “Do you name it? That place you see,” he asked.

  “I used to be able to name some of the constellations, but I don’t see them here.”

  “They are there. As are millions more. Your world hides its eyes to the heavens. But I will show it to you if you wish.”

  “My world?” Chandra twisted her head to him. “And what world would that be? This one? Or the real one.”

  “Do you suggest we are not real?”

  Chandra reached out and touched his arm. “You feel real,” she said, allowing her fingertips to linger on his skin a little longer than she had intended. She pulled back her hand and folded it behind her head. “But I still have my doubts.”

  Tygg dropped to his knees and leaned toward her. “Would you like me to prove it to you?” he asked. “Shall I show you the stars, Chandra?”

  Chandra laughed. “Is that some sort of pickup line?”

  “Pickup line?”

  “Never mind,” she said. “I would rather you tell me why I’m here.”

  Chandra could feel Tygg staring down at her. “You are a child of two worlds,” he said. “You were once in the other, but now you are here.”

  “And if I don’t want to be here?”

  “The gods sent you,” Tygg said. “That is all I can tell you.”

  “I really hate it when people use some god’s will as an excuse for their own deceits.”

  “You do not believe in the will of those most high?”

  “Of course I do. I just don’t want to be a part of it.”

  Tygg lay down next to her. “You already are,” he said.

  Chandra turned her head to protest, but found herself nose to nose with him. His handsome face was but inches away, she realized, and his pupils were dilating hungrily from narrow to wide and back again. “You still have not answered my question,” she said, trying to act as if she hadn’t noticed.

  “Have I not?”

  Chandra looked away, attempting to escape his perfect face, and found herself looking at Orryn instead. He was watching them from across the way, but showed no interest in adding to the conversation. “Fine. Keep me in the dark,” she said. “By the way, dinner’s burning.”

  Tygg’s attention shot to the flaming spit. “By the gods!” he shouted, and leapt to his feet. “Or’n!”

  Chandra watched as Tygg marched away from her. Dinner was ruined, but she didn’t care. She no longer had an appetite. At least not for food.

  She turned her eyes back to the sky, but she found she could not keep her mind on it. Her thoughts kept wandering to the two men arguing by the spit. She told herself to look for a constellation, anything that would steer her thoughts away from them. Find Orion, she told herself, but then she realized the name reminded her too much of Orryn. Something else, then. Leo. Dear lord, could the connection be more obvious? She searched the sky, and then searched some more, but still her thoughts returned to Tygg and Orryn. Yes, she wanted to learn more about the stars.

  Just not the ones she was looking at.

  CHAPTER 14

  The trip to Syddia took much longer than Chandra had anticipated. Though she had a mental map in her head as to the geography of the region, clearly it wasn’t an accurate one. Her leg was beginning to heal, and for that she was grateful, but her ribs still ached and every muscle groaned from too many hours in the saddle. Today was the final day of the journey, and she was growing more anxious. Tomorrow they would be in Syddia, and what would happen to her once they arrived was anyone’s guess.

  They were heading west, at least according to the current position of the sun. Orryn had pointed them in this direction two days back, and there had been no argument from Tygg. The sun was beginning to set, ushering in a horizon of burnt orange with a spattering of stars against the purpling sky. Chandra drew a deep breath and released it, arching her back as she tried to work out the kinks. She couldn’t wait to lie down, but it was more than physical discomfort that had her longing to stop for the night; it was the questions she had on her mind and the answers that Tygg and Orryn still had not given her.

  Throughout the trip they had spoken little of Syddia. Primarily they had exchanged only small talk, which struck Chandra as odd. They were both on some kind of mission, though she still wasn’t clear as to the purpose of it. The only thing they openly discussed had to do with deities, a topic on which they had clear and opposing views. This had led to several heated debates, which in itself was enough to make Chandra’s concerns multiply, but there was also the issue of Orryn. He was becoming more of an emotional mess by the day, and Tygg’s sense of humor was beginning to wane on account of it.

  Orryn and Tygg were currently walking beside the horse, as was their usual position, with her atop it. As Chandra watched their profiles from her peripheral vision, she wondered what they planned to do with her. Neither had been unkind to her, though Orryn was sometimes a bit of an ass, but they were always watching her, hovering around her like she was fragile or untrustworthy. It made her feel uncomfortable, like there was something they weren’t telling her.

  “Stop,” she said.

  They glanced at her but continued to walk.

  Chandra jerked the reins, forcing the horse to halt. “I said stop.”

  Tygg and Orryn complied, then turned to her, awaiting explanation.

  Chandra swung her good leg over the saddle. “I think we should stop here for
the night,” she said. She held out her hand and Tygg helped her down. “You said we would be in Syddia tomorrow,” she continued. “I don’t think losing an hour is going to hurt, do you?”

  Orryn folded his arms. “I don’t see how it will help.”

  “Listen,” Chandra said. She leveled her gaze at him. “I have questions. And I refuse to go any further until you answer them.”

  Tygg held his expression in check. “Perhaps she is right, Or’n,” he said. “An hour, as she calls it, will not make a difference.”

  Orryn glanced at the horizon, then released a sigh. “Very well. But we leave an hour earlier in the morning.”

  Chandra nodded, but her appreciation was in a questionable state. Until now she had gone wherever they took her. What was the point in fighting when she had no place else to go? But if this place was real, if her mind wasn’t actually drugged or damaged, then she needed to start living like it wasn’t a fantasy.

  “Come, sit,” Tygg said, interrupting her thoughts. He was preparing a spot for her under a nearby pine, scooping the needles at its base into a nest. He tossed her bedroll onto it and spread it out.

  “I think I’ll walk around the campsite a bit,” she said, testing her injured leg. It still felt weak, but was well enough to move. “To get some circulation going,” she added.

  Orryn watched as she slowly circled the area.

  Chandra glanced up at him. “Are you watching me because you don’t trust me? Or because you’re trying to protect me?”

  Orryn looked away. “To protect you,” he answered, gathering another stick for the kindling.

  “Why?”

  “It’s my duty.”

  Duty. Why did the word suddenly bother her? Chandra continued to circle. “What is your duty exactly, in regard to me?” she asked.

  “I’m to escort you to Syddia where the Council will question you, to determine what you know and if you are one of the Lost.”

  Chandra stopped. “The Lost? This doesn’t involve a plane crash does it?”

  “No,” Tygg answered. He removed the saddle from the horse and set it on the ground. “We get few of those.”

  “Then what are they, the Lost?” Chandra asked.

  “Children stolen from the island many generations ago,” Tygg said.