Dawnsinger

by Janalyn Voigt

  Finished with her task, Heddwyn bid them good night and disappeared down the ladder.

  “I know it’s not the comfort I promised you…” Kai’s voice came out of the dimness that followed the lantern’s withdrawal.

  She banished the thought of furry bedmates as best she could, for his sake. “We must accept such comfort as we are given.” She braced herself and removed her cloak, and then surrendered it to Kai, who hung it on a peg protruding from the wall. Shivering and shuddering, she slid beneath one of the piles of furs and pulled it to her chin.

  But Kai knelt in prayer.

  As Shae edged closer to him, the hay crunched beneath her, sending up a grassy scent. “What prayer did you give? Or should I not ask?”

  “You may ask. I prayed for our safety. Tomorrow we cross the Maegrad Ceid.”

  “The Ice Mountains? I will join my prayers to yours, but do we have cause to fear?”

  “The icy peaks offer peril enough for sojourners, but ancient lore tells of Erdrich Ceid, the Ice Witch who dwells in the passes. Truth to tell,” Kai’s voice warmed, “I have not met her in all my journeys to and from Whellein, but we should nonetheless keep watch.”

  Shae smiled at the child’s tale, which she’d heard many times. A yawn took her by surprise, and her eyelids drooped. “What else have we to fear?”

  “Only the cold and weariness that comes at such altitudes—and wind shears. But I know the passes well.”

  He didn’t mention the possibility of encountering wingabeast riders bent on killing them, but she knew it existed. Even now, the dark riders might track them. She closed her eyes to pray with zeal but soon fell into the languor of warmth and drowsiness. “My thanks,” she said, her tongue thick with sleep.

  “Thanks?”

  “You protected me this night.”

  “Sleep, Shae.” She heard the smile in his voice. “Tomorrow’s journey will try our strength.”

  ****

  Her steady breathing stirred the silence, a touching sound that comforted. Kai lay beside Shae, enveloped by the scent of hay, and reviewed the night’s events. If the messengers had not imbibed too much, he might this day have suffered more than bruised knuckles. Something worse could have happened, too, had not Quinn stepped in.

  He frowned. He didn’t like to think how close to danger he’d brought Shae. He must watch over her with more care. Although he couldn’t have known about the situation at the inn, he might have guessed that, sooner or later, the hostilities arising within Westerland would reach Norwood.

  Here now in Norwood, as in Westerland, accusations of mischief by wingabeast riders flew. How could such a thing happen? In all Elderland, only the guardians of Rivenn, high guard of Torindan, commanded the wingabeasts. True, the creatures existed in the wild beyond Whellein, inhabiting the reaches behind the impassable peaks of Maegrad Paesad. Could others have tamed them? Or—distressing thought—could traitors exist within the guardians? Creating strife between the Elder and Kindren of Elderland at this time could threaten and weaken Torindan just at the transition of power from Lof Raelein Maeven to Elcon, her son.

  Kai willed himself to let go of such unquiet thoughts, and a thread of song wove through his mind. “For when the DayStar shines while discord darkens Elderland, hearken to the signs and rest within Lof Yuel’s hand.” He had never understood its meaning. At a time of discord, how could one rest? And yet, in sleep at last, he did.

  ****

  Unspeakable evil groped toward Shae. Her heart drumming, she lifted her head in slatted moonlight. Where was she? A strange lump crouched, ready to spring, at the edge of shadow. Fear twisted her stomach.

  His even breathing reminded her that Kai slept near, and she sighed her relief. It had been only a dream.

  But even as her body relaxed toward slumber, her mind snapped a warning. A horrible creature from the world of shadows still sought her. She felt it.

  Shae sat up in alarm, straining to see in the darkness.

  The loft’s wall faded away to reveal two wingabeasts flying toward the inn out of a moon-washed sky. Dark riders clung to their backs.

  The image melted into the walls, which solidified.

  “Kai!”

  He stirred. “What’s wrong?”

  “Our pursuers draw near. I saw them.”

  He sat up and ran a hand through his hair. “You must have had a nightmare.”

  “It was no dream.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just know!” She struggled to stand, hampered by her tunics.

  He pushed to his feet and steadied her. “All right, then. Tell me what happened.”

  “Some thing searches for me, Kai. I can’t explain it—”

  “That’s all right. I believe you.”

  “I saw, as if in a waking dream, two wingabeasts fly toward the inn. I couldn’t tell for certain, but it looked as though their riders wore hoods.”

  He pushed her away with gentle hands. “Wait here.”

  The creak of the ladder told her where he’d gone. She shivered. Where had Kai hung her cloak? There! Two darker shapes stood out in the dimness. With trembling legs she crept toward them, and at last her hand closed on wool. She gave a tug and her cloak came free. The hair at the back of her neck lifted, and she wanted to run back into the moonlight beneath the window. But Kai would need his cloak too, and there was little time to waste. Ignoring her sense of foreboding, she pulled the second cloak from its peg.

  Darkness slithered around Shae’s soul.

  Her knees gave way, and she fell, twisting her hand beneath her. But she bit back her cry, fearful the wrong ears would hear. A chill crawled over her in woeful contrast to the flare of pain in her wrist. Fingers of fear probed her mind, as if to capture her thoughts, and her throat went dry.

  A rush of air reached her, and she realized Kai must have opened the door to the stableyard and gone out. She drank in the cleansing flow, but then the stench of death returned. She could barely breathe and didn’t dare call out, but would the strange presence suffocate her within hailing distance of Kai?

  Lof Yuel! The name, more a prayer, sounded in her mind. As her ears rang, she knew she would faint….

  ****

  “Shae, wake up!”

  She moaned and shook off the creeping blackness.

  Hands gripped her arms. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s—gone.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I—don’t know. A fell spirit somehow touched mine.” Her voice strangled in her throat.

  Kai gathered her against him. “You’re safe now. We must keep you so. You were right, by the way. Two hooded figures slipped into the inn, and I could just make out dark wingabeasts in the clearing between the stableyard and the porch. I hope Quinn and his guests bolted their bedchambers this night. I wish I could warn them somehow, but more lives are at stake than those contained within the inn.”

  There it was again—that hint of a greater purpose. But even if she had time to ask questions, did she want to know the answers? A shudder walked up her spine. “Will they search for us?”

  “We have to assume so. We don’t want to give away that we slept here. Are you well enough to hide our bedding? There’s not much time, and I have to saddle Flecht with little light.”

  Whatever had attacked her was now gone, but the last thing she wanted was to be left alone again. She bit back her protest. “I’ll manage.”

  Kai caught her wrist and pulled her to her feet. “Be careful on the ladder when you come down.”

  “Wait!” She snatched up his cloak and pressed it into his hands. “Take this.”

  Kai touched her face. “Thank you.” Bars of moonlight slanted across him as he strode toward the ladder.

  Forgetting all about rodents, she burrowed into the hay until she’d made a hollow large enough to hide the furs. She covered them over, the task taking far too long. Hay dust tickled her throat, and she sneezed as softly as possible, then
paused to listen with her heart beating in her ears.

  The rustling of hay alerted her. Kai, with Fletch beside him, waited at the bottom of the ladder. The angle of Kai’s head conveyed his tension, and as she descended, he caught and lifted her onto the wingabeast’s back. Flecht clopped toward the stable door.

  Shae sucked in a breath. “Must we go that way?”

  “The back door is barred from the outside. We’ll have to sneak out through the stableyard.”

  “But anyone can see us in this moonlight.”

  “Only if they happen to look. There’s even more danger of being overheard. Remember, voices carry far in the night.”

  They approached the stable door, and as alarm tingled through her, she said no more. The door, already ajar, swung inward with a moan. Shae winced at the sound. Beyond Kai in the widening gap, the stableyard shone blue in the moonlight. As Kai led Flecht through the opening, a brisk wind slapped Shae’s face. Despite its chill, she resisted pulling up her hood. She might need to rely upon her hearing.

  Kai slipped back into the stable, and Shae waited alone in the stableyard. The skin on her arms prickled, and she eyed the silent inn, but found no sign of the intruders within. She could almost doubt they existed save for the dark shapes of their wingabeasts grazing beside the porch. One of the creatures lifted its head and knickered. Although his ears pricked, Flecht did not respond.

  The stable door shut behind Kai and, as dark shapes crawled up its rough surface, Shae’s breathing hitched. But when Kai led Flecht forward, the shadows copied their motions, and relief washed over her. The cloak of darkness waited for them beyond the stable’s corner, just steps away.

  A rasp drew her attention, and she held her breath as the inn door swung inward.

  Running now, Kai pulled Flecht around the corner and to a halt in blessed shadow. Blinded by sudden darkness, Shae understood his caution. And yet, with every nerve strung tight, she had to restrain herself from urging Flecht into a run. Only when Kai touched her arm did she hear the ragged sound of her own breathing. She kicked away the panic baying at her heels as Kai lifted into the saddle before her and took up the reins.

  They had gone only a few steps when the stable door creaked. As Shae hiccupped on a gasp of hysteria, Kai’s hand clapped over her mouth. When she nodded, he released her. She mentally scolded herself. She would do neither of them any good if she didn’t get her nerves under control.

  Flecht reached the rear of the stable, and then carried them into a small meadow. Although moonlight picked them out, the stable’s few windows all faced the inn. If they could only reach the stand of Kabas between the meadow and the weild, they could hide.

  As the stable door thudded, Kai urged Flecht into a run.

  The hooded riders rounded the stable’s corner, but Flecht moved into the darkness beneath the trees and paused. Shae pressed her face against Kai’s back, and his hand slid over hers where they rested at his waist. Warmth went through her at his touch, and she sat straighter.

  A murmur of voices rose and fell in the shifting wind as the hooded riders ventured farther into the clearing. They seemed to peer straight at her, and she held her breath. But the riders, muttering together in angry tones, reined in short of the trees. Their wingabeasts leaped upward into flight and soon dwindled into black dots against the pewter sky.

  “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, but her body shook.

  “They’re pointed southward, which makes sense if they borrowed those wingabeasts from the stables at Torindan. Even if they ride without stopping, they’ll be hard-pressed to return before the wingabeast keeper stirs. Let’s give them a head start to make sure, and then we’ll follow.”

  Follow? She should have listened to Lyse’s warning, after all.

  6

  Torindan

  “Torindan!” Shae breathed.

  The stronghold of Rivenn perched below them on an arm of rock that thrust into the swirling waters of Weild Aenar. Its bulk rose from the mist like some noble bird of prey. Sand-pink wings fanned backward to water’s edge, and white plumage fluttered from atop its many towers. Walled fields stretched from the gatehouse to the granite cliffs that towered overhead. Beyond the fields and near the river, a collection of roofs huddled behind a town wall.

  A humbler Torindan lay in eternal summer surrounded by rolling hills and flowering meadows, at least in her imaginings. This monolith crowded every vista and tinged the very air with its pale colors. She blinked away tears and swallowed against the tightness in her throat. Torindan. High Hold of Faeraven. Seat of the fabled guardians of Rivenn. Center of music and learning. Archive of history. Allerstaed of Worship.

  Flecht lurched in a sudden gust, and Shae tightened her arms around Kai, grateful for his warmth. He would be the only person she’d truly know at Torindan. She’d understood that from the start, but now the reality faced her. When a downdraft caught them, the thrill in her stomach wasn’t entirely due to the unexpected drop.

  Kai’s back muscles flexed as he tightened the reins, and Flecht’s great wings batted to bring them up level.

  Despite her misgivings, Shae welcomed their journey’s end. This rugged land of snow-bound crags, cirques, and valleys seemed to stretch on forever.

  She could still see in her mind’s eye the jagged shafts of ice-encrusted stone pushing against the sky that were the Maegrad Ceid, the Ice Mountains. Nature’s pulse beat with a wild rhythm there. Mysterious under-shrouding mists, the passes had revealed themselves in glimpses of a forbidding landscape where rocks thrust upward through the snow.

  Flecht banked, and Shae swallowed against a new bout of nausea, grateful she would soon find rest.

  Their approach from the river took them past the postern water gate. Its hewn steps, walled and flanked by defensible platforms, ran from an upper gate to water’s edge. They rounded the side of the castle to come upon the barbican, an impressive gatehouse with wide towers and twin turrets. Dampness and the smell of fetid water greeted them as, with a final batting of wings, they landed before the drawbridge that jumped the moat to the barbican.

  A voice called from the turrets. “Kai returns!” Metal rasped, and the wood and iron doors swung inward. Kai guided Flecht across the drawbridge. They entered the barbican, and the wingabeast’s hooves clattered across a plank floor riddled with trap doors. As the massive doors thudded shut behind them, Shae glanced back. The two guardians dropping the iron bar into its rest wore the same surcoat of green and gold as Kai did—the uniform of the guardians of Rivenn.

  They passed beneath the iron teeth of a raised portcullis to enter a corridor where light fell in strips through arrow slits and around closed “murder holes” in the ceiling. At the end of the corridor and beyond a second raised portcullis, a sunlit patch of cobbled road took them onto a drawbridge spanning a smaller channel of the moat.

  They entered the inner gatehouse through an archway and beneath a third raised portcullis. A short corridor with a row of doors on either side led through the center of the gatehouse, but before they reached the archway at its end a flame-haired figure emerged from one the guardrooms.

  “Kai! You return. The Lof Raelein already asks for you.” The youth gazed with undisguised curiosity at Shae.

  “Aerlic!” Kai greeted him. “I present my sister, Shae.”

  “Welcome, Fair One!”

  She smiled at his intensity but dutifully inclined her head in response to his courtly bow.

  “How fares the Lof Raelein?” Kai asked.

  Aerlic’s roguish face sobered. “Her body weakens.”

  Kai frowned. “And her spirit?”

  “It remains strong.”

  “That, at least, comforts.” Kai turned to Shae. “Aerlic is First Archer of the guardians of Rivenn but in my absence, set aside his bow to take my place at Lof Raelein Maeven’s side.” His words held an edge.

  Aerlic frowned. “I kept my duty. I only came to the gatehouse for a quick word with Craelin while Freaer
visits Lof Raelein Maeven. When she rambles, a strangeness overtakes her that only his music can soothe.”

  Kai slid from Flecht’s back. “Craelin is First Guardian of Rivenn, and Freaer is First Musician of Torindan.” He raised his arms to Shae, and she let him take her weight and swing her to the ground.

  “What do you think of Torindan?” Kai asked near her ear.

  “It’s all I’d thought and more. And yet it seems—different.”

  He pulled away to look at her. “Different?”

  “Not as—kind.”

  “Ah!” His face lit. “Children often picture what should be.”

  Shae pushed back her hood and shook out the burnished tangles that had long ago escaped their plait. “But I am no longer a child.”

  “True enough.”

  She lowered her hands from her hair, caught by something in his voice. But he already turned away.

  “Let me tend to your wingabeast,” Aerlic offered. ”The Lof Raelein looks for you.”

  Kai surrendered Flecht’s reins to Aerlic with a weary smile. “Thank you.”

  Kai escorted Shae through the archway into the outer ward. Aerlic followed behind them, leading Flecht, but turned onto the side path that cut to the stables while Kai and Shae continued along the main path toward the gateway to the inner ward.

  Shae gasped at the tiered fountain beyond the gateway’s arch, which rose from a square pool of dressed stone amidst budding roses.

  Kai smiled. “A wellspring supplies the fountain and feeds water through pipes to the kitchens. The stables have a separate well. The source for both lies deep underground, and so may never be poisoned in a siege.”

  As she neared the pool, Shae saw the bronze figures topping the fountain—a rearing wingabeast with a youthful rider.

  Kai paused beside her. “Talan’s wild ride.”

  She had known that particular tale since her early days. With the sun behind him, she squinted at Kai. “The statue puts your description to shame.”