“Siusan,” Brin said softly. “Darius is only saying what I have thought myself.”
“Well he is a Breken fool! I would not have allowed you to go, in any case, as you were not ready. What would it serve anyone if you killed yourself trying to find them?” Siusan’s voice trembled on the last few words and Brin lowered his head and brushed it against hers. She leaned into him before taking comfort by wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Oh,” Carly said with a surprised little squeak.
“Oh? Oh, what?” Daniel asked, not getting it.
“Brin?” Dearra questioned him.
Darius threw his head back and roared with laughter. “Seriously, Brin? Is that the way of it?”
“What?” Daniel asked again, still not seeing what was right before him.
Carly gave her husband a little shove and stage-whispered to him, “The fairy is in love with him.”
“Which fairy is in love with whom. I don’t—” Daniel’s eyes widened as he looked at Brin and then to the tiny Etrafarian who was still clinging to his neck and was burying her face against his gleaming scales. “No. No, not really. It’s a joke, right?”
“Brin?” Dearra said again.
He looked at her and shrugged. “What can I say? The heart is a strange thing. I have only gone where it has led.”
“What kind of answer is that? Brin, have you taken leave of your senses?”
“Dearra, calm down,” Darius said. “You and I weren’t exactly a match most people approved of either. We can at least try to have a little tolerance.”
“Tolerance? Tolerance! For…that? Darius, don’t be absurd! You and I were at least the same species. This is just…wrong. Brin can’t possibly be in love with her. It’s disgusting!”
Brin winced. He felt the exact moment when Siusan completely lost it. Her hands grew icy cold on his neck, and when she whirled to face Dearra, the wind didn’t increase slowly, rather, it slammed into her and her alone, sending her tumbling from the log in a backward somersault. When Dearra stood, she pulled her sword free of its scabbard and leaned into the gale still pummeling her, as she tried to get to the Etrafarian woman. Her eyes were completely consumed by golden flames.
Brin moved to put his body between Siusan and Dearra, and Darius tackled Dearra, knocking her to the ground.
“Stop it!” Aesri shouted over the wind. “Siusan! Get ahold of yourself!”
The wind subsided, but Siusan still held her hands at the ready, panting from the effort it was taking her to control her emotions.
“Let me up, Darius,” Dearra said in a voice nearly as cold as Siusan’s attack.
Darius continued to hold her as he put his lips close to her ear. “Have you calmed down?”
She turned her head, and he could still see the gold blazing.
“No, she has not,” Brin warned. "Keep her there until she can behave herself."
“Easy for you to say,” Darius chuckled. “You don’t have to sleep with her.”
Brin saw Siusan tense again, but she managed to lower her hands and take a steadying breath.
“Dearra,” Aesri said. “I thought you had outgrown these childish outbursts.”
“Not likely,” Daniel quipped, and was silenced when Carly’s elbow made contact with his stomach.
“Let me up!” Dearra shouted, and Darius cautiously loosened his hold and helped her to her feet.
Aesri made a tsking noise and shook her head. “Dearra, Siusan, I am ashamed of you both. You claim to love Brin, so how can you think of hurting him in this manner? Dearra, put the sword away. If you were to harm Siusan, do you think Brin would ever forgive that, even of you? And Siusan, your jealousy does you no credit. Hating Dearra is like hating Brin himself. They are part of one another, now and forever. Asking him to cut her from his life would be akin to asking him to cut out his own heart.”
“Dearra, please,” Brin said in his deep, rumbling voice. “I did not go looking for this, but now that I have found it, can’t you be happy for me? You have Darius and the children and I…”
“You have me, Brin! You have all of us on Maj! Aren’t we enough? If you are with her, you are bound to go away and leave us.”
“I would never leave you, not really. Did you love me less when you and Darius were joined? Do you remember? I was so worried that you would. I thought I'd no longer be needed, but you came to me and convinced me otherwise. Now I'm asking for you to trust me in the same way. I will always love you, always need you, always be there for you. Please, Fuzzy. Siusan makes me…happy.”
“But she’s…human.”
“Some of my best friends are.” Brin said softly.
Dearra threw her hands up in surrender.
“There, now, that is much better,” Aesri said, smiling at them.
“I didn’t say I approved,” Dearra snapped.
“No,” Aesri said. “You have not, but we will save approval for another day. For now, let us content ourselves with agreeing that no one needs to die tonight. We have enough to do without all of that.”
“Come on, dearest,” Darius said. He took a seat and patted his lap, inviting her to join him.
“Not a chance! You and I will have a private discussion later tonight about the proper way to treat the Lady of Maj when in company. Knocking me to the ground? Really, Darius?”
Darius lifted a brow. “When the Lady of Maj acts like a jealous, spoiled child, I think I know precisely how to treat her. Now, come and sit down.”
She gave a little snort of disgust, but she went and sat on his lap anyway, and he wrapped his arms about her waist and nuzzled her neck.
“Stop it,” she whispered, but Brin saw with some relief that she'd leaned back against him, and the golden glow had disappeared from her eyes.
Aesri began to draw a rough map in the dirt. “Here is where we will need to go. There is only one place to dock. Our presence will not go unnoticed, but there is nothing we can do about that. We have some of our own people on each of the ships, and they will be able to whisper the word to each of the crew members so they can see.”
“You mean they still can’t see Etrafa?” Carly asked.
“No, as far as they are concerned, they are anchored in shallow water with nothing for miles in any direction. They would have seen us for a while after we left the ships, but then the boats would simply have vanished. That was explained to each of the captains before we set out.”
“Why didn’t you tell them all before we came ashore?” Daniel asked.
“Because I did not know what we would find once we got here. I saw Brin, but he turned and flew back toward the mainland in such haste, I was concerned.
“I wanted to tell, Siusan, is all.” Brin shuffled nervously, and Dearra looked closely at him, as if able to sense there was a lie hidden there somewhere. The truth of it was, he hadn’t wanted Dearra’s first sight of him to be with Siusan riding upon his back. Dearra had asked him, more than once, to allow her to do that very thing, but the thought of carrying someone on his back as if he were nothing more than a common pack animal had wounded his considerable pride, and he simply couldn’t bring himself to do it, not even for her. He could about guess what she would have said if she'd seen Siusan.
“So,” Aesri continued, seemingly oblivious to Dearra’s scrutiny and Brin’s discomfort. “Once the ships are docked we will go straight in. The path is narrow, but it is only a couple of miles. The Etrafarians we brought with us will be able to offer some additional protection. I do not want anyone killed if we can avoid it. These are our brothers and sisters. Of course, Dearra, if your people need to act to protect themselves, they should do so. We need to get to the council, Trina specifically. Once we have taken them and the council guard, I think there will be little left in the way of resistance.
“We will need to install a new council, one that most of them will accept. We will leave the bulk of your people to hold Etrafa and keep Trina and her supporters from acting up again. Once we have done that,
we can head north.”
“What I can’t understand is why would they go clear to the north shores of Etrafa?” Daniel said. He rubbed the stubble on his chin, which lately had started to show the slightest sprinkling of white amongst the red.
“Tolah hasn’t told me,” Brin said. “He said something about ‘the others,’ but that doesn’t make a lot of sense. There are no others on Etrafa.”
“Could someone be coming? As we have?” Carly asked the group at large. “Maybe, the others aren’t here yet, but they are on their way.”
“Maybe,” Daniel nodded slowly, “but that still doesn’t explain why our children would go there, or how they could know that someone was coming. Brin, can’t you ask Tolah when you're having one of those dreams of yours?”
“I have asked, Weapons Master, but when you ask Tolah a question he doesn’t want to answer, he can make you more confused than when you started out. It’s highly unusual for him to speak directly to a dragon in the first place. His information may not seem terribly helpful, but it’s a lot more than we would have without him. At least we know where to start.”
“I don’t like leaving Maj and Mirin Tor in charge of Etrafa, Aesri,” Dearra said. She was frowning, her hands absentmindedly twisting and untwisting the hair at the end of her braid. "The king didn’t send them to be an invasion force, only to help.”
Aesri tried to ease Dearra’s mind. “They will not be an invasion force, Dearra, just a…motivator. Etrafa will remain under the direct care and control of the Etrafarians. The Maj and Mirin Tor will simply assist the new council with keeping order for a little while. Once we have your children back, we can decide how best to proceed from there.”
“It’s late,” Darius said. He stood and set Dearra on her feet. “Let’s go back to the ships and share what we’ve learned here. They must be worried, and we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“Go back to the ships?” Dearra said, eyeing Brin and Siusan. “Maybe I should stay here tonight. Brin might think of something else.”
“He can tell us in the morning, Dearra. Come on.”
Darius had put his arm around her shoulder and was already herding her back toward the boats, but Brin could see the way she was chewing on her bottom lip, trying to think of some valid reason to stay so that she would not have to leave them alone.
“Goodnight, Dearra,” Siusan said sweetly. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
Brin squinted his eyes at her.
“What?” Siusan wore a look of complete innocence, but Brin was not the least bit fooled.
“You did that on purpose.”
“Do you want to scold me, or do you want to go and get some rest?”
Given those options, and knowing that a good scolding wasn’t likely to make her the least bit repentant, Brin rolled his eyes and motioned for her to lead on.
Why was it, he wondered, that the biggest trouble came in the smallest of packages?
Chapter 29
Tabitha bit the inside of her cheek and concentrated on her breathing. It was the only way she'd found to keep herself from crying out. Almost there, almost there, almost there, became her mantra. The forest ahead grew steadily, if slowly, closer. Every step Logan took jarred her, and her ankle throbbed against the bandages. It had swelled again, making the bindings much too tight, but the last thing she wanted to do was stop—not that they would have been able to.
The reason for their haste was less than two miles behind them. Their pursuers had finally managed to close the distance, and Tabitha could see them across the mostly flat terrain as they stumbled their way forward. They had probably been able to float for quite a while, and with no one to carry, they could go on further and faster than Logan. Tabby knew they needed to reach the trees as soon as possible if they were going to have any chance. Out here, they were easy targets.
Logan faltered and Tabby wasn’t able to contain her scream when her foot was slammed into the ground.
“Logan!” Brint called out. He had one arm around Holly, trying to help her keep up with the demanding pace.
“Keep going!” Logan shouted back. He placed his hands on the stones and forced himself to stand again.
“Logan, put me down. You’ll never make it with me on your back. They won’t hurt me. The worst that will happen is that they'll take me back. Please, just—”
“Tabitha, love? Would you do something for me?”
“Of course. Anything.”
“Good, then please…shut up.”
She didn’t know from where he summoned the will, but she felt them rise ever so slightly, and he began to run. Every few steps he would come down hard. They caught up with Brint and Holly, and Logan somehow managed to keep pace with them.
“We’re going to have company,” Logan warned.
Brint looked back. “Aw, hell. Anything in the pack you can’t live without?”
“Not a thing.”
“Good.” Brint dropped Logan’s pack as well as his own, and without missing a step, he grabbed hold of Holly and tossed her unceremoniously onto his back.
“Brint, put me down,” Holly ordered, but he didn’t even bother to respond. Tabitha thought her brother was about as likely to comply with her wishes as sprout wings. He wore a look of fierce determination that reminded her of her father when he'd set his mind to something. Tabitha could have told Holly she was wasting her breath, but she'd gone back to biting the inside of her cheek to maintain her composure.
Tabitha looked back once more to see that the Etrafarians had halved the distance between them.
“We’ll never make the trees before they catch us,” Logan said, panting heavily.
“You have another idea?”
“Not really.”
“Can you fight, if it comes to that?” Brint asked him.
“Not with magic, but I can swing a sword.”
Tabitha’s mind raced. There had to be something she could do. “If you stand me up, I can put most of my weight on one leg. I’m sure I could fight. If they get too close, I'll probably pop to somewhere safer.
“Tabitha,” Logan sighed. “First of all, you have managed that trick a total of twice, so we can’t be sure it will happen again. Second, when you pop, you are liable to end up on that bad leg and fall right on your face.”
The rocks at their feet thinned to a scattering of smaller stones and then they were running on grass. The woods were maybe a hundred yards distant, about the same distance that separated them from Kellen and his group. And it was Kellen. Tabitha could see his face. He appeared tired, but still he smiled. His quarry was almost within reach, and he was like a hound seeing the fox. He sped up, even as Tabby watched.
A blast of fire hit several yards to their rear, igniting the dried grass. Tabitha heard Kellen’s voice much too close behind them. “Not yet, you idiot. We are not close enough, and if that fire spreads, you will only slow us down.”
The trees were so close, but Kellen and his gang were closer, and they had fanned out and were passing them on either side in preparation of closing the net. They no longer had any choice. Brint and Logan slowed together as if reading each other’s minds. Brint set Holly between him and Logan and Tabitha was set down as well. To her chagrin, he had put her on her behind. She tried to stagger to a standing position, but Logan placed a hand on her shoulder, refusing to let her rise. He used his other hand to draw his blade.
Kellen and the other men circled them like wolves. “Darach Croi,” Kellen said with a nod. “You made a good try, but we have you now. Come back with us. My mother will probably just send you and your sister home.”
“And Holly?” Brint asked. “What of Holly?”
“She must pay for her crime, surely you can see that.”
“I can’t allow that, Kellen. She is Maj. Why don’t you let us go, and we will all return to Maj? You’ll not have to be bothered by any of us again. I’ll even take that one with me,” Brint said, nodding in Logan’s direction.
“I
cannot do that. Actually, if it were only you, I might be willing to look the other way. You have not been so bad, but the cine measctha must be returned to Etrafa. Your sister is nothing to me, but she has a mouth on her, and for that reason alone, I will take her back.”
The Etrafarian men surrounding them lifted their hands. Not to kill, per se, but to at least show they could; would if pushed to it.
“Then we are at an impasse, Kellen.” Brint lifted his sword.
Tabitha didn’t think the swords would be of much use against fairy magic. One on one, they'd have a chance. Fairies were better at a distance. If a swordsman could get in close enough, the tables would be turned, and the Etrafarian would become the one at a disadvantage, but they were outnumbered two to one—more than that, actually, since Tabitha was unable to even stand let alone fight, and Holly had no weapon but her meager magic.
Kellen had summoned a small orb of earth that separated itself into multiple spinning projectiles, and he turned his attention to Holly. It was obvious, by the way Brint kept shifting to try to shield her, that Holly was his weak spot. By threatening her, Kellen had Brint right where he wanted him.
He raised his hands slowly, casually, almost as if playing with them, but before he could finish the movement, it started to rain. No, that wasn’t even close to being accurate. It was a downpour, a torrent, a flood of water. His small orbs turned to mud and ran between his splayed fingers.
Tabitha looked to Holly, but she was as stunned as the rest.
Kellen and his men tried to take cover, but their feet had been frozen to the ground, and then, with a shuddering groan, the earth itself shot upwards to encircle them. A dome of ice, at least three feet thick, capped the makeshift prison.
No fewer than thirty Etrafarians floated forward from the forest. They were dressed head to toe in shades of gray, and they wore the hoods of their cloaks low over their faces. From behind them came a pack of wolves, which moved to the mound where Kellen's angry voice, and the voices of his men, were shouting muffled curses. The wolves circled the mound, sniffing, and issuing an occasional growl before lying down and watching intently. They panted, tongues lolling from the sides of their mouths, and waited.
Prophecy (The Destiny Series Book 4) Page 24