“I’m not your man.” He hissed the answer to the voice in his head, holding his arms out for balance. The footing in the riverbed was treacherous, and his wounded leg - bitten by that damnable dog, and still bleeding - shrieked in complaint as he demanded more and more strength.
You were sent to kill the girl.
“I did what I could. Not even I could get close enough to try again.”
Unacceptable!
It was a roar behind his eyes, and Lothaedus nearly lost his balance. Whatever was using Garen’s voice, it was furious.
Too bad. He gritted his teeth at the thought and stepped out of the icy water, moving behind a curtain of hanging vines.
“I can’t help you,” he whispered, going upstream far enough distant from the water’s edge that the ground was hard and did not show his passing. “Get someone else.”
No more words assaulted his mind, there was just a flash of such staggering anger it almost weakened his knees, and then it was gone. Lothaedus kept running. He didn’t know exactly where he would go, but strange things were happening in this world that he wanted no part of, not for any price. The time had come for him to simply disappear.
Phelwen Semaj was beyond angry.
He paced the body back and forth in the tunnels of the Witherin, fuming silently as he recalled the sustained surge of power he had felt only hours before. It had to be the girl. It was impossible, unthinkable. She was a nothing, an aberration, an inconvenience – and she was supposed to be dead. He released his fury on several formless spirits drifting beside him, dispersing them into screaming mist with a flick of power. He took an unnecessary breath, controlling his anger before he summoned Logannus.
“Tell me where we stand.”
The First Fallen bowed low. Your forces continue to press in the west, my Lord, under cover of snow. More troops are gained there with each attack. Progress in the east is slow, we’ve only just gained control of the second entrance. Sources say a small human army has left Estfall. We await your command. How may I serve you?
Semaj lashed out, and familiar pain clenched around Logannus. He made no sound, he made no move, he simply waited through the clutching agony - he knew better than to expect death, however upset his Lord may be. Finally the grip relaxed, and Semaj again began to pace.
“The girl,” he said. “To the last they have failed me, and the hour grows late. Kill her, Logannus. This lies with you. I trust no one else.”
Logannus nodded. It will be done.
He faded into shadow, leaving Semaj to command his own armies. Logannus would find the girl, and he would do what the others had not because it must be done. He was the First of the Five; his powers were formidable in their own right. He was the First of the Five; he had faced Phelwen Semaj himself on the mountain a thousand years before. Logannus moved deeper into the Witherin, following the paths that had lain waiting for centuries.
He was the First Fallen; his loyalty was unquestioned, unquestionable. He repeated it to himself with every breath he did not take, filling his mind with it, filling his thoughts, wrapping himself in it like a cloak.
But he could not make himself believe it.
20
“War is no place for children.”
Despite the finality of Jovan’s tone, Aggravain was not silenced. “Would you rather have gone hungry on the way here?” he asked, gesturing to the heaping bowl of stew before him. “Amarta and Boy saved us at least three days with their magic.”
“They’re still children,” Jovan replied stubbornly, though even he had to admit that being able to eat his fill and ride instead of walk was a welcome change. While most people affected by Melody’s song manifested either physical or elemental-based power, a few found themselves possessed of more unique gifts.
Amarta was able to regenerate vegetables - cutting a carrot or potato into eight pieces resulted in eight new potatoes or carrots.
Boy, as the other magic user was called, had surprised them all. According to everyone from Tregon, he hadn’t made a sound since the day he was born ten years earlier. His mother had died in childbirth, and he’d been known simply as the Boy while different families cared for him over the years. No one was even sure Boy could hear, but he had come to Thordike the morning after Melody sang with a full herd of horses for the army. There was not a brand on any of them, and they were all absolutely obedient to Boy, taking to a saddle or wagon as calmly as any domestic beast.
“Twelve hardly counts as a child, Jovan,” Senna said. “Amarta was already working in the kitchens back in Tregon.”
“Boy is younger than her. And working in an inn is different than marching to war. At least Boy could have stayed behind,” Jovan suggested. “The horses don’t need him.”
“We’ll need more horses, though.” Melody had stayed silent for most of the discussion. She was fully healed from the attack the previous week, though her face - much like Derek’s - would show the scars for the rest of her days. “More people means more food, and more horses. They can provide both.”
“In Foley, children were apprenticed as young as eight,” Rhodoban added. “Some take them even younger, if the need is great. Ours is.”
“I’m not saying we don’t need them,” Jovan said. “I’m saying— Lich be damned, I just don’t like it.”
“I don’t think any of us like it,” Senna said. “They’re well cared for, though. Boy and Amarta are both staying with the Thordike children. The only place safer at this point is with Melody and you.”
Jovan, stunned, let the dig at his recent overprotectiveness slide. “She brought them all?” He’d seen Arik, the oldest, at his father’s side, but assumed the others had remained in Estfall. “Her whole family?”
“She wasn’t about to leave them.” Senna said it as if it were obvious.
“Does no one understand what we’re doing?” Jovan rubbed his forehead. “Why did she even come?”
“I’m glad she did,” Melody said, finishing the last of her stew. Her appetite had calmed down some after the full moon, but she was still hungry more often than not. Especially when the baby was active, as he almost always was.
Jovan sighed. “I know. I am too, of course. Without her—” Melody’s ruined face was a constant reminder of his failure. “I don’t want to think about it. But war is still no place for children.”
You didn’t fail, Melody sent him as the rest of the table fell silent. I used magic to keep you asleep. She knew he would still condemn himself, but she had to try.
Aggravain scraped the bottom of his stew bowl with his spoon. “So do you think you can make someone who can bring in more game this time, Melody? Vegetables are great, but …”
Senna shoved him, playfully. “Make? She’s not sculpting, ‘Vain, she’s singing. Speaking of which, we should get ready.”
“I’ve been thinking. The two of you don’t have to be on stage, right?” Jovan asked, shifting in his chair. “She can sing from here, like she did before?”
“Nothing is going to happen to her, Jovan.” Senna gestured around the table. “Not with the lot of you standing guard.”
“That didn’t help much the last time,” he sighed.
“She wasn’t attacked on stage last time,” Rhodoban reminded him.
“No,” Jovan agreed, “and the bastard got away. Who knows where he is now?”
Aggravain frowned. “He’s nowhere close,” he assured them. “He was damned fast, even wounded, and he covered his tracks better than anyone I’ve ever hunted - but I had him heading east when the sun came up. We won’t be seeing him again. Even if he does double back, I’d smell him before he made it anywhere close.”
“It’s easier if I have peoples’ attention,” Melody said. “Plus, while I’m singing I can sense everything, or at least the magic in everything. If anyone wanted to hurt me, I’d know it. I’d be able to stop them.”
“How deep do you have to focus for that, though?” Jovan’s steered her away from the guilt of killing Mad
Reskan, bringing her back to the danger of getting lost in the magic.
“I can be careful.” Melody sounded confident. “It’s easier when Senna’s with me, and I can see all of you. It did help me stay grounded last time.”
“Besides,” Senna added, “it’s easier afterwards. People like to know why they’re changing, and who can help them figure it all out.”
“Or who to blame.” Jovan remembered the unhappy new users in Estfall.
“That won’t happen,” Melody assured him as she stood and stretched her aching back. “I’ve changed the song so people won’t be so surprised by the magic now. I’m going to go see some of the town before we start, walk through the streets while the weather is nice,” she said. “I can reach people who can’t hear me if I know where they are. It’s like following my own footprints.”
Every person at the table stood, prepared to accompany her, and Melody’s immediate laughter had none of the control over her voice that she had been using. Each of them felt her claustrophobic amusement - and her irritation.
“Really?” she asked. “All of you?”
“We just want—”
Melody didn’t let Jovan finish. “You want me safe,” she snapped. “I know. You haven’t let me out of your sight for a week, to keep me safe. But I’m not some fragile piece of pottery, Jovan. I’m a person, and I am not without skills of my own. I don’t need a chaperone, I need a moment alone for a change!” She turned and walked out of the common room, her head held high.
After a brief, stunned moment, the others looked expectantly at Jovan.
“She’s not wrong,” he admitted, taking his seat once more. He met Aggravain’s eyes, and gave the slightest of nods. “I guess I have been a little overbearing.”
Senna stared at him, her expression clear even as she silently gestured to ‘Vain’s departing back. “And yet…?”
“Her being right doesn’t make me wrong, Senna. As long as Duke Korith or the Lich King - or even Brody Douglas - is out there, she’s in danger. You know it. We all do. Even her. ’Vain will look after her from a distance. We both get what we want.”
“It’s easy to forget she could tear this town to the ground,” Derek said, finishing his ale. “It seems strange to worry about protecting her, when you think about it.”
“A punch to the throat almost killed her last week,” Rhodoban reminded him.
Derek leaned back in his chair, then looked at the door. He sighed, conflicted.
“Try not to be too obvious,” Jovan advised as the scarred man stood up, his intentions clear. “She’s probably by the well.”
Rhodoban was close behind Derek, leaving Senna and Jovan at the table alone.
“There’s no way Melody won’t notice them,” Senna said.
“I know.” Jovan finished his drink. “She’s already spotted ‘Vain.”
“Is she furious?”
“No. She’s just got a lot to think about,” he said. “She needs breathing room, and he’s giving it to her.”
Senna nodded. “Have you talked about it?” she asked. “The baby?”
“No.” His answer did not invite further conversation, but Senna pushed on.
“Jovan, this pregnancy is going to kill—”
“No.” He shook his head, cutting off her words. “You’re a Healer. You and the others won’t let it happen.”
Senna lowered her voice. “There are precious few of us, Jovan. Without more Healers? With the baby developing so quickly? I honestly don’t know if we can keep up.”
He tightened his jaw. “Then we stack the odds. Anyone who might turn into a Healer, and every Healer we already have - get them here, before she sings. All of them, even her mother. You get stronger, right? When you hear her?”
“Yes,” Senna said. “We can all be here, but we can’t know who else might develop into a Healer…”
“We have to try. Get anyone who already tries to help people, or animals. Herbalists, maids, shepherds, stablehands, parents … Lady Thordike,” he remembered. “Get her kids in here too, maybe it runs in families.”
Senna raised an eyebrow. “I thought war was no place for children,” she said.
“It’s not. But if Boy is old enough, so are the others.” Jovan met her eyes, quietly desperate. “She has to live, Senna.”
“I’ll get started,” she said. “I’ll gather the other Healers, see who else we can find.”
Jovan stopped her as she moved past him. “Thank you,” he said. “We couldn’t do this without you.”
“You were right, earlier.” Jovan stirred the coals in the small fireplace and added more wood as Melody looked up at the stars from her position by the window. She had sung for well over an hour, to as large a group as they could gather, and he could feel her bringing herself back into the moment.
I know.
“I’ve been so worried about your safety that I wasn’t thinking about what you needed.”
True.
“I overdid it,” he admitted.
You did, she agreed.
Jovan shook his head, and smiled over his shoulder at her. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
Should I?
He stood, crossing the room to stand on the other side of the window frame. “I wouldn’t mind if it was a little easier,” he said. “I don’t apologize every day, you know.”
Believe me, I know. A smile played around her lips.
Jovan took a step closer to her and reached for her hands. She let them be taken. “All right,” he said. “I’ll say it. I’m sorry.”
And? The playful smile was almost a grin now as he squirmed perhaps more visibly than he might have if she were not enjoying his torment so much.
“And I still worry about you?” He did, that was the truth, but they were the wrong words.
Try saying “I’ll do my best to ease up and relax, Melody.”
“I’ll do my best to ease up and relax,” he repeated softly, squeezing her hands. “Melody…”
She stepped closer, pressing against him, pinning their clasped hands against her belly. She looked up at him, her red-gold eyes sparkling in a perfect match to the Havenstone around her neck. Now say “I know it wasn’t my fault that Brody attacked you, Melody.”
His smile slipped, and he started to pull away, but she held tight to his hands. Say it, she insisted. Please.
“I … “ His eyes searched her face, tracing the wide, angry scar under her eye. “I can’t, Melody, I should have—”
I will step on your toe if you don’t say it, Jovan.
Her empty threat should have amused him, but smiling seemed impossible in the face of his obvious failure. “I know it wasn’t my fault,” he whispered, unable to meet her eyes. “But—”
Now say “I love you, Melody.”
Jovan’s heart stuttered in his chest. He did, of course he did, he couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t, but he had never— There was no hesitation in his words. “I love you, Melody.”
“And I love you,” she said aloud, letting the full strength of her emotion come through in her words. The enormous truth of it nearly sent him to his knees, but before he could even begin to respond, they both gasped - under their hands, the baby had moved.
“Are you all right?” Jovan asked, immediately concerned, but Melody was smiling. He had felt no pain from her, there were still weeks until the moon was full, so why …?
“Your son loves you too,” Melody whispered.
Jovan pulled her into his arms and kissed her, laughing against her mouth as he felt the baby kick again, this time against his own abdomen. “My son,” he said, tasting the words for the first time and placing his hand against the swell of her belly once more.
Yours, Melody emphasized, laying her hand on top of his. He knows you. The baby pushed against their hands again, as if in agreement.
Jovan smiled. “Well met, my son.”
21
“They’re sure it’s safe, my Lady?” Bashara shiver
ed not just from the cold, looking around at the deserted market and up at the dark windows of Porthold’s Keep. Others, too, had slowed as they took in the eerie emptiness of the famously massive bridge city.
Bethcelamin pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders as the icy breeze brought the bitter scent of impending snow. “Jayden wouldn’t have let us come if it wasn’t,” she replied. “They just want everyone sheltered before the storm hits.”
The gloomy sky above them was dark in spite of the early hour, full of ominous clouds racing over each other in waves and wisps. The horizon behind them was already obscured by the chasing snow.
Bashara followed behind Bethcelamin. “Where did everyone go?” she wondered aloud. “It’s all still here…” She slowed at one of the vendor booths, running her bare fingers over the withered pile of frosty, once-fresh fruit. “Why would they leave?”
“I’m sure the attack we experienced had something to do with it.” Bethcelamin did not relish the memory, and she knew her maid didn’t either. She took Bashara’s offered arm, grateful to be out of the sharp, biting wind as they climbed the stone stairs to the suite they had occupied the last time they were there.
“There are no bodies, though, there’s nothing … no one.” Bashara’s brow furrowed in concern - her Lady was leaning much more heavily on her arm than usual. “Lady, forgive me, but are you injured?”
Bethcelamin paused at the top of the stairs, the burning ache in her back and shoulders providing a painful counterpoint to the chill stillness of the empty Keep. “No, of course not Bashara, everything is fine. Thank you.” The words were automatic, as was her reassuring smile. Her maid’s disbelief was evident in the set of her mouth, so Bethcelamin released her arm and started down the hall without her aid. “Come, tell me of Orrin while we walk,” she suggested. “When will you be hand-fasted?”
Bashara’s face lit up with a smile that quickly fell. “It was to be this very night,” she admitted, twirling her betrothed’s ring on her finger. “Lady Thordike suggested it yesterday and her husband agreed, but with the city empty and the storm coming…”
Arise Page 13