Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One

by McPhail, Melissa

  She pushed past the soldier and shouted to the others, “Douse the fire!”

  Rhys gave her a startled look, but Tanis must’ve sensed something of her thoughts, for he started scattering the coals with a heavy stick while Bastian smothered any lingering flames with ash.

  Seeing that accomplished, the Avieth turned to Ean. “Keep everyone inside and away from the entrance,” she ordered. Then she ran back out into the rising storm.

  “What in Tiern’aval?” Fynn said, coming up beside his cousin.

  Ean was equally bemused.

  “She didn’t want him seeing the light,” Tanis offered. The lad approached through the darkness of the cave, backlit by what dim embers remained from the dying coals.

  “Didn’t want who seeing it?” Fynn asked.

  “I don’t know—she didn’t know,” Tanis added. “But there’s…something out there.” Abruptly, the lad shivered.

  “Fynn,” Ean said in a tone that spoke volumes, and the royal cousin followed as Ean headed back to the cave mouth. He pressed his back against the stone and peered around the rough edge. Beyond, the mountainside fell away into the gorge, a scattering of trees furring the near slopes. What moonlight peeped between the swiftly flowing clouds illumined the gorge in varying shades of charcoal and black.

  Ean stared into the gloom letting his eyes adjust. He felt Fynn’s near closeness and heard Rhys breathing further behind, all of them trying to discern what had so disturbed the Avieth.

  Suddenly Ean clutched at his head. It came as an attack on his senses, a shrieking, screaming, raging purge that raped his mind with malicious glee. Gasping for breath, the prince fell to his knees.

  “Ean!” Fynn hissed.

  Pain consumed Ean, driving the air from his lungs, petrifying their membranes, burning them with sulfuric smoke. Ean clutched his skull and fell forward onto the cave floor, whimpering as he curled into a ball.

  While the others looked on in horror, darkness consumed Ean…digested him, and spit him back into the fires to burn anew. He felt the claws of a massive beast shredding his skin, while worms with a thousand spiny teeth chewed their way through his brain. Pain wracked him in vivid color, but despite the assault on his senses, he instinctively knew the attack was waged only against him.

  He—means—to—draw—me—out.

  It was incredible how hard he had to concentrate in order to complete the thought, for the agony raging within him demanded his full attention. Yet somehow the moment was familiar—as if he’d faced such pain before.

  “Get Alyneri!” Fynn meanwhile hissed, and the sound of quickly shuffling feet was Rhys making his careful way back into the depths of the cave.

  “Ean…” Fynn grabbed him by the shoulders, but his hands were no comfort. The prince was already putting every ounce of will toward holding in his screams.

  Alyneri arrived in a rustling of skirts and threw herself to her knees. Ean felt her soft hands upon his head, and another whimper escaped him. Fire raged up and down his body while unseen claws tore great strips of flesh from his bones.

  He burned.

  He was being torn apart.

  Pain ravaged unhindered, feeding on his flesh with wild abandon.

  A low moan escaped his lips, and he managed one agonized inhale. Shuddering, he pulled his knees in closer and rocked himself, clenching his teeth so tightly he feared they would shatter. All his desperation was on trying not to scream, knowing the attack was waged for that purpose alone. I will not—will not—will—not!

  “What’s wrong with him?” Fynn hissed.

  “I don’t know!” Alyneri sounded close to tears.

  “Lord Captain…” Cayal said under his breath. He was standing in the shadow of the cave’s entrance staring out into the night. “You’d better see this.”

  Fynn looked up and reluctantly left Ean to join Rhys at the entrance, whereupon Cayal pointed to the north.

  It was far away and approaching fast, a dark form flying low beneath tempestuous clouds. As it grew nearer, its shape became clearer, though it never seemed more than a shadow. No light illumined it; rather it was discernable only because it blocked other things from view—clouds, trees…entire mountain peaks.

  Those who saw it stood frozen, aghast, unable to form words to describe it even had they found their voices.

  Abruptly a dark form reared up before them. It was Gwynnleth pushing them back and away, safely into the shadows of the deeper cave.

  Even from far within, they saw it fly close, and seconds passed before all of it went by. The beat of its wings sent a whirlwind of dirt spinning into the cave, and they all turned their heads away, shielding their eyes. While Ean moaned an unearthly whine and rocked, hugging his head, the creature turned and flew past them again, heading back in the direction from which it had come. They could hear each whacking flap of its wings, a reverberating thump and crack of lightning striking earth.

  The thumping faded, and then there was only the sound of quiet rainfall.

  After a long silence, Ean released his knees and fell onto his back with a shuddering exhalation.

  “Ean—dear Epiphany!” Alyneri hugged his chest, pulling him close as she wept with relief.

  Fynn swore a stream of curses. He knelt at Ean’s side. “What in thirteen bloody hells just happened?”

  The prince laid the back of one arm across his forehead and drew in another shuddering breath. It was hard letting go of the pain—hard to convince himself it was truly gone, that there was no reason for his body to still feel it. Impossible to relax.

  “It was looking for him,” Gwynnleth said, and turning behind her she added to whoever was listening, “You can get the fire started again.”

  Moments later a blaze of dead fir limbs illuminated the cave with warm yellow light.

  “What was that…thing?” a benumbed Cayal asked her.

  She shrugged.

  “It was one of his creatures,” Ean rasped. He rolled onto his side and shakily pushed himself up. The understanding had come in a visceral way, instinct born of a past life’s fatal experience melding now with knowledge recently gained. “The ones who’re hunting me. It must’ve been one of the Fifth Vestal’s creatures.”

  Alyneri got to her feet and helped Ean to stand. “But…” she gazed at him in confusion as he was slowly straightening. “But what gave you such pain?”

  “It did,” Ean said. “…I think.”

  “How?”

  Ean thought about that as he walked shakily toward the fire, and suddenly one major piece found its place in the puzzle. “It knows my pattern,” he whispered, the knowledge coming with a pang of terror as he now understood more about the danger he faced.

  Alyneri blanched. “It knows your pattern?” she repeated, aghast. She sounded even more horrified as she whispered, “It can work the lifeforce?”

  Ean wrapped an arm around her shoulders—more for his own comfort and reassurance than hers. The last of the experience was working itself from his body, and he trembled every so often, drawing concerned looks from her. “It’s hunting for me,” he said, “and because it knows my pattern, it can use that to cause me pain.”

  “That’s horrible!” Alyneri gasped. “It’s unthinkable that an Adept would do such a thing to another—even a Wildling!”

  “I beg your pardon?” Gwynnleth said with one eyebrow arched dangerously. “It’s far more likely to see a second-strander abusing his talent than to find a third abusing theirs.”

  “And I suppose Geshaiwyn are only acting on natural instincts when they hunt men as prey?” Alyneri retorted.

  “Girls, girls,” Fynn interposed, “if you’re going to fight, let it be naked in my bedroom.” He looked directly to the Avieth then. “I’ve never heard of any Wildling race that looked like that. Have you?”

  Reluctantly she turned to look at him. “I don’t think that thing was germane to our world.”

  “Belloth blow me sideways,” Fynn growled. “What in Tiern’aval do we d
o now?”

  Ean looked to him. “Nothing has changed, Fynn.”

  Fynn threw up his hands. “Oh sure,” he grumbled. “‘Go with your cousin,’ the Vestal said to me,” he mimicked Raine’s voice and manner fairly well. “‘Watch out for him. Protect him from those that hunt.’ Right.” Fynn spun an irritable glare at Ean. “He didn’t say anything about Whisper Lords, Bethamin’s Ascendants, Marquiin and bloody freaking dragons!”

  “It did seem a dragon,” noted Cayal in a low voice to Tanis, who sat beside him.

  “Calm down, Fynn,” Ean murmured. He sat down beside the fire, grateful for its heat, for its warmth. Life-giving warmth. For all the searing pain he’d felt, beneath it, behind it, was a cold so wholly dead it could only represent the end of everything they knew. Trying to shake off the feeling, which disturbed him on a primal level and left his very soul trembling, Ean held his hands to the flames and told Fynn resolutely, “The only difference is that now we know better what chases.”

  Sometime during the night, the temperature dropped and the rain turned to snow. The company emerged from the cave the following morning into a sparkling white wonderland. Though the day remained cold, the sun hung brightly above them, warming their backs as they continued the long trek through the river gorge. Ean was reticent to speak with the others about what had happened, refusing to burden them with the same fears he battled constantly. He’d already had altercations with Rhys and Fynn earlier that morning, which resulted in nothing but ill feelings between them, but his position was firm. Better they be angry with him than suffer the same malady of fear and indecision.

  Such was his mindset when Gwynnleth came to speak with him.

  The Avieth rode with them that day, sitting bareback on her chestnut stallion, which had been a gift from the comte d’Ornay. She offered no explanation for why she rode instead of flying scout far above, but Ean was growing used to the idea that Wildlings rarely explained themselves to anyone.

  The winding way alternated between long stretches of high firs and sheer cliffs overlooking the river far below. At one point, the road narrowed as it wound around the edge of a sheer precipice overlooking the Mondes, and the group was forced to spread out. Ean was riding fourth in line, behind Fynn, Brody and Rhys in the lead, when Gwynnleth brought her mount up to join his side. She was quiet for a long while, just gazing ahead with her straight nose and high cheekbones in profile to Ean, her wild, wavy hair pulled back with a leather cord. There was something familiar about her profile—Ean recalled thinking this before, but was still unsure what it was about her that caught his attention—yet while she looked foreign and wild, he didn’t think of her as fierce, save in description of her beauty.

  “You do them no service, Ean val Lorian,” she said suddenly, still gazing forward.

  Ean followed her eyes toward Rhys and Fynn and knew she referenced their earlier argument. “What good comes of speaking of things you know nothing about?” he disagreed. “We talk in circles, resolving nothing.”

  Her attention flashed to him—there were moments, such as then, when she seemed very avian: the way she suddenly jerked her head around, like a hawk spotting prey, or how she might watch for hours unending with an owl’s piercing stare. “Perhaps you reach no resolution,” she agreed, holding his gaze, “but something is gained.”

  “What would that be?” he asked with one brow arched skeptically.

  She looked forward once more. “You see no value in the conversation because you are thinking only of yourself and your own needs.”

  Ean bristled. “I am not thinking of myself!”

  “Really? A good leader listens to the concerns of his men.”

  Ean shook his head and stared off angrily over the gorge. “They seek answers that I don’t have.”

  “A good leader listens without the need to solve.”

  Ean worked the muscles of his jaw, clenching and unclenching. “Is that so?”

  “Indeed,” she confirmed in her detached way, as if merely commenting upon the weather and not things so close to his heart. “Your men need to speak of these things to you. They’re not in search of solutions—as you mistakenly believe—but of reassurance. They need to know you’re concerned about the same things they’re concerned about, that you’re seeing the same dangers.”

  Her answer mollified his anger but roused his angst. He spun her a pained look. “How could I not be?”

  “Of course.” She waved a hand airily. “’Tis a foregone conclusion that you must have the same concerns. So you should see then that their questions are really just a means of communicating their own fear, and it helps them to voice these fears to you, their leader, even if you are not so similarly aided by the conversation.” When Ean said nothing, only stared out at the gorge, she inquired, “Are you similarly aided?”

  He turned her a defeated look. One day, he would learn better than to argue with the Avieth; she had a way of turning all quarrels to her favor while instilling feelings of culpability and guilt more acutely than any of his governesses or even his mother. “How then might I reassure you, Gwynnleth?” he asked bitterly.

  She arched a ginger brow at him. “Mocking me will cost you half a mark.”

  “If my manner seems mocking,” he returned, “it is only that I need the reassurance of your continued company. Whoever will lecture me once you leave my side?”

  She regarded him narrowly and then turned forward once more. “Why is that creature hunting you?”

  Ean thought of denying her the benefit of an answer, but he knew it would only earn him another lecture—perhaps on the ill-advisement of self-serving witticism—so he exhaled a heavy sigh and offered, “I believe—and this is only conjecture, for rest you assured I haven’t asked—that it wants to kill me because I can unwork patterns.”

  That drew her eye with both brows raised. “Unwork them? You are a wielder?”

  He shook his head.

  Her eyes widened. “An Adept then?” She looked him up and down curiously. “Of what strand?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed, feeling as always the anguish of the mystery turning a jagged dagger in his chest. “The Vestal told me I had Returned. Later I realized that I have recently Awakened, but I’ve never heard of a strand of Adept who can unwork patterns.” He lifted troubled grey eyes to her. “Have you?”

  She cocked her head sideways and peered at him. “What can you do?”

  Ean thought of the patterns he’d unworked, the trace-seal, his invisible bounds, and the Marquiin. If only he could understand what he’d done. The Marquiin was especially troubling, for his demise sparked questions Ean didn’t dare even ask himself. Yet he spoke the words to the Avieth as a confession upon his tongue. “I destroyed the hold that Bethamin had on one of his Marquiin.”

  Far from surprised, Gwynnleth merely cocked her head to the other side and continued staring at him in her unsettling way. After a moment, she turned forward again. “There is an old Cyrenaic legend about a group that called themselves the Quorum of the Sixth Truth,” she said. “They lived in the times before the cataclysm, before there were Vestals to watch over elae’s children. The Quorum was said to boast powerful wielders who could counter even the most terrible spell, undo any magical working.” She arched inquiring brows, adding, “Sounds something like you, no?”

  “I wouldn’t have put it exactly like that,” Ean muttered.

  “In its nascent years, the Quorum was widely hailed and recognized, for they seemed to live up to their boast and could be called upon for aid in any situation. Alas, their end was not so bright.”

  “What happened?”

  She absently thumbed the hilt of her short sword at her belt. “The legend is unclear. What is known is that the Quorum became splintered; some of its members began practices which were antipathetic to the Quorum’s original purpose. There was a grave battle in which their temple in Tambarré was destroyed, and the surviving members scattered.”

  Ean sighed. So much for ho
ping they might help me.

  “You miss the point again, Northerner,” Gwynnleth remonstrated with an annoyed look, aptly interpreting his sigh of disappointment. “Adepts are inextricably linked to their strand. They Return—again, and again, and again—always as an Adept of the same strand. I have many times lived and died as an Avieth,” and she added proudly, “It will always be so.”

  “I see,” Ean said, eyeing her peevishly, “so you think I’m a resurrected Quorum member from Cyrenaic times.”

  “It is not impossible,” she confirmed, either missing or ignoring his sarcastic tone.

  Ean didn’t want to speak of the matter anymore, for it roused too much ire and heartache, so he changed the subject. “The other morning, in the yard at the Ville de la Chesney…how did you learn to fight like that?”

  “I have trained for many years.”

  “In what style?” he pressed, for the matter was a curiosity. He’d only ever seen one man swing his blade in a similar fashion.

  “I learned from different tutors.”

  “You wield Merdanti blades,” Ean pointed out, refusing to let her evade the question. “I have only ever heard of one race carrying such weapons, reportedly made at their own hands.”

  Gwynnleth tossed her head. “Anyone can wield a Merdanti blade.”

  The road widened then, for they rounded the cliff at last, and the way opened a view onto the winding path behind them, which followed the line of bulging cliffs. That’s when Rhys reined in to wait for Ean. He wore a stormy expression and nodded toward the road behind. “We’re being followed.”

  Ean peered over his shoulder, squinting in the glaring wintry sunlight toward the dark spot further back along the curving trail.

  “A lone rider on this trail warrants investigation,” Rhys said. “I’ll send Cayal for a closer look.”

  As the captain signaled to the scout, Gwynnleth turned and gazed over her shoulder. “I doubt you have much to fear from that zanthyr,” she noted after a moment. “If he intended you harm, you’d have clashed with him days ago.”

  Ean’s heart skipped a beat. “A zanthyr? You think that man’s a zanthyr?”