The Remedy (Eyes of E'veria)

by Serena Chase

  The dry stockings soothed like a blanket to my feet, but as soon as I put my wet boots on, they were soaked.

  “At least the next water will be warm,” Erielle said. “‘A dive through water strangely warm,’ remember?”

  “And yet I can’t bring myself to look forward to it,” I answered in a tone much drier than the rest of me. “The phrase ‘strangely warm’ is too mysterious for my taste.”

  I squeezed the water from my hair as best I could. Except for an occasional shudder, the shivering had let up and I was only cold, not frozen. Erielle had braided her hair, but she left the braid hanging down her back. I followed suit. The tangles would have to remain until, if The First allowed, I arrived at Castle Rynwyk in Salderyn.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I bent to retrieve a few small sticks of kindling from my pack. We each had a few, wrapped snuggly within waxed oilcloth, for building a fire. Now seemed as good a time as any to use them.

  A prickling sensation lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. My hands fumbled and I dropped the sticks.

  Enemy. I recognized the warning this time.

  “Wrap them back up,” I said to Erielle, hastening to do the same with mine. “We need to keep moving.” I rolled the oilcloth around the kindling, tucked in the ends, and tied the twine.

  The men were all changed and had piled some of their own kindling together. Kinley knocked a spark with his flint.

  “Put it away,” I said. “Enemies approach. We don’t have time.” Without thinking to explain myself, I lifted my torch and walked the circumference of the room.

  Besides the point at which we had entered, three deeply shadowed passageways led away from this chamber. To my left was the best passageway, wide and secure-looking. As I approached it, however, the prickly sensation increased.

  I quickly moved to the other two and groaned. Both looked as if they might cave in at any time. I turned back toward the men and Erielle.

  I pointed toward the perfect cavern passage. “Enemies approach from that direction. We must pick one of these two tunnels. And fast. I will try to unlock the cells in Dwons as we flee.”

  “Are you sure?” Julien sounded dubious, but stilled at my look. “Of course you’re sure,” he amended. “Which way seems best?”

  “What’s the next mark in the scrolls?”

  “Well, we’ve ridden the swell,” Kinley said, “so that’s the fourth mark, I guess. We’re on to the night-drenched caverns, yes?”

  “You’re assuming the scrolls are chronological,” Dyfnel argued. “They may not be!”

  “I think they are,” Erielle spoke so quiety that I doubted anyone but me could hear. I started a bit at her tone, for in that moment, the quiet confidence in her voice reminded me of Lady Anya.

  “You have a better idea?” Risson arched an eyebrow at Dyfnel, but the physician shook his head.

  “‘Through night-drenched caverns of silence dimmed,’” Erielle quoted the poem, her voice louder now, but it echoed the frustration of trying to decipher that particular rhyme. “Well, without our torches,” she said with a scowl, “they’re all as dark as midnight. But how do you dim silence?” She threw up her arms. “It’s already as dim as it can be!”

  Princess Rynnaia. I closed my eyes to receive Harbyn’s message. We have been spotted. The enemy has engaged. I’m sorry, Princess, but we must act now. Our opportunity to rescue Sir Gladiel and Sir Drinius will not come again.

  Unlocking the cells would be easy as long as I was able to fully concentrate on the task, but I couldn’t allow myself to become distracted, not even by the scrolls and the marks to which they led.

  “Julien,” I said, “the regiments have been spotted. Hurry!”

  Julien strode between the caverns, shining his light down each. “Both look more than a little treacherous. There is a strange noise coming from this one. Like hail on the roof,” he said, and then moved to the next. We were all silent while he listened. “Nothing.” He scowled. “Which could really be nothing . . . or could be something worse.”

  “Worse than hail inside a mountain?” Gerrias crooked an eyebrow.

  “I didn’t say it was hail. Only that it sounded like it.”

  Risson rushed to the corrupted entrance where Julien had noted the sound. He listened for a moment.

  “How do you dim silence?” He turned around, grinning. “With sound! You can only dim silence by making it less silent!”

  “Of course!” Julien said. He drew his sword. Kinley, Risson, Erielle, and the Andoven men also drew their weapons.

  Gerrias stepped forward. “I will carry you, Princess,” he said.

  “What about your arm?” The wolfcat’s bite had gone deep.

  “It’s healing.” He shrugged. “But I’ll shoulder most of your weight on my left side if it makes you feel better.”

  “Are you certain it’s wise? I don’t want to—”

  He silenced me with a shake of his head. “You concentrate on your task, Princess, and allow me to attend to mine.” Without waiting for my reply, he scooped me up in his arms and gave me a tentative smile imbued with hope. “And while you’re at it, tell my father ‘hello’ for me, would you?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Gerrias followed Julien and Dyfnel through the noisy door with me in his arms. Everyone else was behind us with Kinley as the rear guard. I settled my head against Gerrias’s shoulder and closed my eyes.

  Uncle Drinius. I pictured his face and my mind raced out of the cave and across landscapes at a gut-wrenching speed.

  “Rose?”

  I shuddered at the name and almost lost my concentration. “Rynnaia.” I said aloud. Rynnaia.

  “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  There is no time. I am going to unlock the cell doors now and you must escape. Regiments from Nyrland and Sengarra have engaged the enemy outside to distract them. Whatever you do, do not touch the locks or the cell bars. I will open the cells from here.

  “You can do that?”

  Yes. Be ready to help those around you. I will free as many as I can.

  “There are few left. Most have died trying to escape. Only four cells remain occupied.”

  My heart clenched. And Sir Gladiel?

  “I’m here.”

  Thank Rynloeft.

  I changed my focus from his face to the lock on the bars and felt the presence of the coarse silver strand of beard before I saw it. Wrapped firmly around the bars, it was implanted into the locking mechanism. Amazing, I thought, though it caused a shiver to rove my form. The curse had been spoken in such away that its evil seemed to infiltrate the very metal the hair touched.

  As my mind entered the hole of the lock, my ears rang with a sound like freshly forged metal scraping against the teeth of a rusty saw. Searing pain shot through my temples as the Cobeld magic resisted me.

  I gasped and felt Gerrias’s arms tighten around my body. But a spare second later, agony exploded in my brain and I lost awareness of Gerrias, of everything, except the lock . . . and the pain.

  My goal argued with my need for relief. If I looked away and severed the connection, the pain would go away. But if I severed the connection, I would consign Drinius, Gladiel, and the other prisoners, perhaps even the regiments fighting outside the fortress, to death. No! I refused to move my gaze from the lock.

  As if sensing my determination and deciding to thwart it, the level of pain increased. I fought against it, but if steel bonds had been wrapped about my body, I could not have felt more trapped within the pain. I twisted and struggled, but the hair, that shimmering silver hair, had me in its thrall.

  Move aside! I commanded. It only glittered in response, almost as if the curse itself was denying my request. At the glimmer, another burst of ice-cold agony struck my mind. The pain was nearly unbearable.

  Move aside! If I moved my eyes from the lock, the connection would be broken and the knights would not escape. Move . . .

  The rest of the command failed to form as a
gonizing torment seized every nerve in my body.

  I was failing. The curse of the Cobeld beard was too strong for my mind. Even my mother’s blessing was not enough to protect me from it.

  My heartbeat slowed. A searing, cold numbness stole over me. Am I still breathing? I wondered, unable even to access whatever allowed me to know.

  I’ve failed. I. Have. Failed!

  Something hot and wet traced a path across my face, but I was unable to see, hear, or comprehend anything beyond the shining strand of hair. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t break the connection now. The curse held me firmly in its grasp.

  Despair seeped into and around every thought. I was filled with utter desolation and a loneliness so deep that it was as if my last friend had finally abandoned me to die alone in this dark and frightening place. I was entirely alone, but for the ancient evil that was so much stronger than I could have imagined.

  I could not even see the lock anymore. Only the hair. That cursed silver hair. It was dark and cold. So very cold.

  Where is the light? Where is everyone?

  With a chilling sense of unendable torture, agony sent claws of dread into my soul and I lost all comprehension of time. How long had I been in this battle? Moments? Days? Years? I could no longer sense Drinius or Gladiel. Perhaps they were already dead. Perhaps my efforts had killed them, rather than saved them.

  All is lost.

  A fresh, stabbing glimmer came from the hair and more pain shot through my skull. Surely I would be released from the anguish soon, even if only through death. Freezing, but unable to shiver, I wished the pain would numb with the cold, but it only grew stronger as my will to outlast it weakened.

  I tasted blood. And I knew it was mine. The tang of copper and salt filled my mouth until I was drowning in it, and death seemed so near that its breath brushed against my heart.

  Just as I was about to admit defeat, sudden spots of warmth touched my body. Warmth! I reached toward it.

  Specks of light, like stars in a velvety sky, broke through the sinister night that had invaded my mind. Colors, like tiny sparks, invaded my thoughts, but the torture was too severe to put names to them. Drops of liquid fell on my face, accompanied by the strange awareness that they were tears, but unlike the blood that filled my mouth and threatened to drown my breath, they were not my own.

  The darkness eased just a touch. The despair gripping my soul lifted slightly, as if lightened by a brute force of excruciating consolation. Suddenly, a memory pierced through my pain-filled consciousness like a dream, a memory to which I had only recently gained access.

  I was a child again, cradled in my father’s strong arms. I sat in his lap and he had an arm around my shoulder and the opposite hand resting on the top of my head, his own face lifted toward the ceiling. His rich, tender voice spoke a name over me . . .

  Embral e’ Veria.

  Unlimited power, governed by unending love.

  The vision faded, and in that moment I understood what I lacked. I understood the reason for my failure.

  The voice of my thoughts was faint and strained, but with everything in me, I called on that name.

  Embral e’ Veria. Help me.

  A singular beam of pure white light rent the darkness. It seemed far away at first, but grew brighter and nearer the more intensely I focused on it.

  A rumble of warmth shook the remaining darkness in my soul. The words it formed, words of fathomless power, bathed in limitless love, caressed the center of my despair.

  I am with you, Rynnaia E’veri.

  The Voice. The Voice! I was not alone. The First was here and he would help me defeat this wretched curse.

  I gasped. It was the first breath I’d taken in some time and it carried a sweet aroma of which I had never caught scent of before, but I knew from whence it came. It was a scent of deeper, stronger, older power than any rotting curse the Cobelds could create.

  I focused on the hair again.

  Move aside!

  The whisker quivered but it did not move.

  By the power granted me by The First, I command you to be gone!

  At the utterance of that name, the hair disintegrated and fell, becoming nothing more than a shimmer of powder on the dungeon floor.

  Gratitude humbled me. Rynnaia E’veri had presented no challenge to the evil Cobeld curse, but its limited power was obliterated by the infinite dominion of Embral e’ Veria. The First. The Highest Reigning who had descended from the Reign Most High . . . to rescue me.

  With the hair out of the way, my mind entered the locking mechanism. It clicked and I flung the door open.

  Hurry, Uncle Drinius! Gladiel, hurry!

  I moved my focus to the remaining cells, but as if each silver thread had sensed the power of The First as clearly as I had, the remaining hairs disintegrated at a glance. The prisoners clamored after Drinius and Gladiel.

  Take the left passage and up the stairs!

  I guided the prisoners through the maze of the dungeon passageways. Even weakened as they were from months in captivity, surprise enabled them to overtake the few remaining guards who had not joined the battle outside the fortress.

  Once they were safely ensconced within the ranks of our men, who had taken a clear advantage in the fight, I disconnected my mind from the rescue effort and tried to find my way back to the rest of me, still within Mount Shireya.

  But that proved more difficult than I could have possibly imagined.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Where am I?

  I could not yet open my eyes, but the sounds of battle seemed too close. Too close, that is, for my consciousness to have returned to my body within Mount Shireya. Had I not removed my mind as entirely from Dwons as I had thought?

  I tried to speak, but couldn’t. Numbness still trapped most of my senses and functions. It stole my voice and set my heart—which had nearly ground to a halt while battling the lock—beating at a frantic, frightened pace.

  Could my senses have stayed in Dwons against my will? And if so, why couldn’t I open my eyes? I couldn’t see—or even sense—anything but the dim sounds of a battle.

  My mind was exhausted. My ears, confused. Why did the sounds of war still echo around me when I felt wholly within my body? It was as if I was suspended between places, my ears still trapped on the battlefield in Dwons, but the rest of me restored—yet inaccessible—to my friends within Mount Shireya.

  Little by little, sensation returned to my skin. Wherever I was, Gerrias no longer held me. Instead I was on my back with a cold stone floor beneath me.

  A swish of air passed over my head. And another. But I could not seem to move or open my eyes. Had the battle I’d fought against the Cobeld curse paralyzed me? I tried to move my fingers, but I wasn’t even sure they were still attached to my body. I only hoped my paralysis was a temporary disability. The Remedy was not yet in my grasp!

  A sense of urgency pulled at my mind with the colors of my friends and truth rushed in.

  I was in the mountain.

  The battle was here.

  The enemy had found us.

  A groan sounded nearby, followed by a thud. A warm object landed beside me and one set of colors flashed brightly—so brightly that my mind ached with their beauty—and then disappeared from my mind.

  Risson! I searched, trawling my mind for the threads of color that were uniquely him. Risson! It was no use. He was somehow blocked from my mind and I refused, at the moment, to face what that might mean.

  I put all my energy, such as it was, to the task of simply opening my eyes. Finally they complied, if only by a slit at first.

  I faced the ceiling of a large circular chamber. Dampness clung to the air like thick, invisible sheets, but the room was bright, illumined not only by tirandite torches, but . . . by fire?

  My mind was so weakened by the Cobeld curse that I could move no part of my body, save my eyes. Another breeze passed over my face, brought by the blur of an object I couldn’t identify. Was it a bird?
If so, it moved more swiftly than any bird I had ever seen.

  Encircling the perimeter of the ceiling, a formation of stalactites pointed downward. The mineral deposits within each icicle-like form glittered as if they had never before been touched by light and were determined to show off their beauty in case the chance never came again.

  I took a deep breath and reached for my other senses.

  My hearing was the next to strengthen, but it seemed to favor one ear over the other. I had a sense of hearing, at least partially, from the moment I had returned, but sounds were now more easily distinguished from one another.

  Metal clashed against metal and a twangy zing of arrows had a rhythmic regularity that revealed that Erielle was not the only one with a bow in hand. When I noted the guttural voices amidst the noise, and my mind translated their muttering curses, I feared what might accompany those arrows.

  “Death! Death! Suffer! Die!” The Cobeld voices rang through the room, grating on my eardrums. Had I been able to move, I’m sure I would have trembled as the Cobelds named each curse before letting it fly at my friends. But paralyzed as I was, I couldn’t even turn my head.

  I searched my memory for something from the poetry that I could draw from to help me help my friends. As verses went through my mind, the circle of stalactites picked up bits of light and proudly cast shadows around the room as if they were the jeweled crown of Mount Shireya herself.

  What was the last bit of the scrolls we had identified?

  Through night-drenched caverns of silence dimmed.

  Yes. That was it! What comes next? I had to repeat the whole stanza in order to remember it.

  The Ryn must travel deaf and blind. Well, I’d not seen or heard anything between when we entered those night-drenched caverns and now, so I guess that qualified as traveling deaf and blind.

  Unsheathe the swords as arrows fly. My friends, even now, were in the midst of that.