“We'll struggle to find each other in this never mind those we seek!” I balled into the now blizzard.
Aurora just smiled despite the abundant snowflakes which sought to obliterate her beautiful visage. It was odd to see her do so when I myself struggled so much. It was almost as though she came alive in the storm, a Nordic goddess. If the girl's cloak had been of falcon feathers, I would have said her Freyja reborn on our dying world, but I doubted even myths and legends could've had such piercing, blue eyes. She ran unimpeded, a force of nature. I stared across at her, rubbed the ice from my eyes, and marvelled, for that was all one could do.
Perhaps in response to my concerns, Aurora stretched out a slender arm through the maelstrom and took my hand in her own.
“We shall not lose each other now, Jean.” She hurled the words through the weather although they felt whispered in my ear. “And do not worry, I have the fire's scent, we shall not lose your friends.”
“You can smell the fire even in this?”
“With ease, my friend. I have lived in these conditions for too long to not thrive in them.”
“Can you sense your brothers, too?”
“I can.”
“And?”
“They close,” her flat response.
“How long do we have?”
“How fast can you run?”
“I was going slow for you,” I winked, the gesture made incomplete as my eyelid froze in closed mode. It took several fierce rubs before the thing unlocked of its own accord.
Aurora responded with a laugh that made light of our situation. Despite carrying the cloak of blood bags, she redoubled her efforts almost pulling my arm from its socket in the process.
How Aurora navigated the whiteout who knew, but she sped on through the elements with utter disdain for everything they hurled at us. Occasionally, she would veer to one side or the other allowing enough latitude for me to avoid whatever materialised out of the gloom be it the deformed shapes of solitary trees, boulders, or worse. Never once did she break stride. Never once did I doubt her.
After a time, instinct took over. My body allowed Aurora to tow it through the night, as, in turn, my mind wandered back to the mountaintop. I feared for the Sunyins. Even if the Nordic princes circumnavigated their pinnacled resting place, I doubted they'd survive the storm we ran through. My knowledge of human anatomy was rudimentary, gleaned from the scraps of information my parents had stashed in the books they so cherished, but one thing I knew for sure was such extremes of exposure were beyond them. If tears could have fallen in the temperatures we hurtled through, my pale face should have been encased in them, an ice mask for my melancholy. The little men had exposed a part of me I never knew I possessed. From my first encounter with them in Shangri-La, to the brutal slaughter of he who would always be, to my mind, the one true Sunyin, at the hands of Scott's Zeppelin crew, those most honourable of men had shown life was not to be scoffed at, belittled, or scorned, but treasured. One day I would, too, I was determined to, but I doubted they themselves would ever see it.
“Jean,” Aurora's whispering snapped me back into the tempest.
“What?” I shouted back.
“We have arrived.”
She came to a skidded stop, me along with her.
“I see nothing, Aura. There is only snow, ever more of it at that.”
“Beneath the snow.”
At that, Aurora released my hand, dropped the cloak to the ground and clawed at the foot-deep snow. I joined her, although I knew not what she sought until like ebony jewels set in a porcelain crown, we uncovered the charred remains of a fire. Aurora put her hand to the burnt offerings, then shook her regal head.
“What do you sense?” I asked, raising my arm against the ferocious weather.
“Nothing. That's the problem. I had hoped for a clue as to how long ago they departed.”
“But you have none, I take it.”
“None at all,” she replied. “Help me, Jean.”
Aurora swept the snow aside with a speed that testified to her desperation. I joined her, hoping to uncover something, anything. When I did, it was not what I'd wished for.
“Is this what I think it is?”
Aurora rushed over, shook her head, and sucked in her cheeks.
“Yes,” she grimaced. “Chantelle's carriage tracks.”
Twin sets of deep ruts sat pressed into the dark ground.
“Then, Chantelle and the others have them.”
“I assume the same.”
“But the sun will be up soon,” I said with a hint of desperation.
“True, but if they have the monks, then they can drive on through the day.”
“Damn it!” I bellowed into the storm. The wind swallowed my words, but I felt better for their release. “Why the hell would they keep going north if they already have the monks?”
“My mother,” Aurora said standing and facing the accused direction. The wind tore at her clothes, the snow sought to encase her in an iced tomb. Aurora faced it with a determination that burned in those bluest eyes. Even the wind abated before her in apparent fear of her rage. As for me, she inspired.
“Come on, this is good news, not bad. We now know who, what and where we chase down.”
“Yes, we do,” Aurora said fixing me with a penetrating glare. “Let us leave.”
And before I could respond she had retaken my hand and set off at a rate of knots unparalleled, so swiftly we sliced through the maelstrom.
* * *
We'd raced for perhaps another hour when, as all our kind could, I sensed somewhere behind the curtain of winter the ruby sun to rise. I only prayed it slowed those we hunted.
If Aurora thought the same, she did not express it. In fact, I would have said her expressionless. She ran as though in a trance and I worried for what went through that elegant mind. Aurora moved as one with the elements, eyes closed, head flung back, long hair streaming out behind whipping against her shoulders to an ominous rhythm. She sashayed through the winter's violence in direct opposition to my battle against it. Then, as abruptly as she'd commenced her sprint, she ceased and released my hand.
A tsunami of snow pushed forward under the force of Aurora's sliding feet and she ducked to the ground like a predator of old. One hand touched to the snow, the other twisted in the wind. Her alabaster fingers twirled amongst the snowflakes, sought something in the midst of that elemental barrage, something that disturbed her. I remained silent not wishing to break her concentration.
“Something's wrong, Jean. Do you not feel it, a vibration?”
I ducked down beside her as the snowfall abated a fraction. I placed my hand on the ground and was about to reply in the negative when a cry of such magnitude split the dawn I almost fell on my behind.
“AAAUUURRRROOOORRRRAAAA!”
“That does not sound good,” I growled.
My royal companion paid it no heed. Both her hands felt at the ground, whilst I searched the night. The snow lessened dramatically then, and I thought I saw the distant outline of the Nordics, but couldn't be sure.
“Aura, we must go,” I hissed. The princess looked up wide-eyed, then flung herself forward grabbing my arm in one fluid motion, dragging me with her. The ground split asunder behind us with a crack that heaven would've heard if there was one. We scrambled forward through the deepening snow as the crack behind us became a fissure, then gulf, then void.
“AAAUUURRRROOOORRRRAAAA!”
“The twins.”
“Unfortunately,” she agreed, climbing to her feet.
I pulled her a few steps further back as the single landscape became a very definite two.
“There,” she said pointing to the unmistakeable forms of her snowflake-like kin. Her forefinger stabbed south.
“They're not going to be happy about this.”
Aurora arced one perfect eyebrow.
It was difficult to tell who was who in the ever-growing distance. The snow had again trickled back into downwa
rd motion after its respite falling into the chasm like flour in a bowl.
“I'm sure the distance is too great even for your brothers to span.”
“Not yet it isn't,” she replied, staring across to the diminishing ledge.
“No man can make that leap,” I insisted. It didn't stop my apprehension, though, as I stood there trying to convince myself of that salient fact. “Look,” I said, somewhat relieved, “they slow.”
“Three do,” she replied. “One does not.”
I knew what she intimated, but thought her mad to even contemplate it, as the impassive face of Grella materialised out of the murk.
“No, don't do it,” I heard myself voice. The words were as lost on me as they were anyone else. It was clear Grella attempted the impossible.
I watched beside my Nordic princess as three brothers slid to a triumvirate of stops in their older brother's wake. Grella paid them no heed as he reached a speed I thought impossible for any living being. He shot towards the chasm, arrow-like, not for a second slowing his pace, never wavering, then leapt. He sailed into the air, a hawk to its prey. Even then I thought he'd fall. The Nordic prince had other ideas.
My companion swept an entangled cloak from her arms and tensed. I tensed with her. For right before my eyes, the impossible became the possible, the miracle jump achieved. Grella landed in a crouch with the effortless grace of an ancient panther.
I was so shocked that he'd made it, I was rendered temporarily immobile. I wanted to say something humorous, something devastatingly witty, before he ripped me apart, but stood dumbstruck. All I did was marvel as Grella rose from the ground, spun, and bowed to his brothers in one elegant, luminous movement.
By the time he'd adjusted his cloak, goggles and shirtsleeves, I felt as prepared for those final moments of my Eternal life as anyone could.
The prince of the Nordics turned to his prey, us, ruby eyes gleaming, opened his mouth and said, “Good morning, Aurora. Good morning, Jean.”
I almost reeled back into the void.
Chapter Twenty-One
-
Blood
“Aurora, I am here to escort you home.” Grella offered his sister an outstretched hand.
“I do not want to go home.”
“You must, Mother wishes it.”
“I do not care, I am staying with Jean.”
“You are young, so I shall forgive your petulance, but you are going. I have already had this same discussion with Jean.”
“It was hardly a discussion,” I chipped in.
Grella, unimpressed by my words, took a step closer to his sister, who in turn took a step back.
“It is unfair to embroil a stranger in the workings of our family, my sister.”
“Oh, I wouldn't let it bother you. I have no family of my own, so it's nice to be a part of one even if it's just to disrupt it.”
Grella's fingers were around my throat in a blur of white movement, snowflakes lifting in his wake to kiss their brethren halfway down their descent. His grip crushed, although he held back, or I wouldn't have had a throat with which him to do so.
I had no chance to react for Aurora was upon him in a flash of white lightning. She ripped his fingers away, and then swung the hapless prince around by his cloak releasing him to a distance of thirty feet or more.
“Do you think your jump scared me, brother?” she hissed, feral and uncontainable.
“It was not meant to,” Grella replied, already back on his feet. “I do not wish to hurt you, Aurora.” In less time than it took him to speak her name, he stood before us.
“Then let me be,” Aurora replied unmoved, determined to not back down.
Polar opposites, they stood apart, separated by nothing more than the shade of an eye.
“I must do as our mother commands. It is a son's duty to obey.”
“I am not a son.”
“No, you are not,” Grella replied with a shake of the head.
“Do I bore you?”
“Never that, dear sister.”
“You're killing me, Grella, just tell her what you told me. Before you hit me hard enough to level a small mountain,” I added, placatory palms raised.
“What did you tell, Jean?” Aurora demanded.
“I…”
“That you hate me!”
“I…”
“That you despise my half-breed self!”
“I…”
“That you have never loved this sister like you do your others! That you wished I was dead!”
Aurora spewed one verbal tirade after another.
“I…”
“I thought so.”
“Give him chance, Aura,” I said.
Grella gave an astonished look as I spoke her name. I let him stew on it.
“Go on then, thrall me,” Aurora huffed.
I didn't think it possible for a man who was quite probably thousands of years old to look so uncomfortable. He mopped his brow as the snow, having begun to fall heavily again, collected on his cold shoulders like white epaulettes. Separated from his distant brothers, already obscured by the storm, Grella appeared even more isolated a figure. It was like he thought for himself without anybody looking over his shoulder or offering advice for the first time in his life, and the strain told. He shuffled from one foot to the other like a naughty child, his regal face set with a hint of desperation. He stared to where his brothers should have stood, then back to his sister. Whether Aurora's unblinking gaze unnerved him, or he was just uncomfortable expressing his true feelings, I was unsure, but he had two inches of snow piled atop him before he spoke again.
“I told Jean that I love you.”
His words were uttered so softly that Aurora leant in to hear them said again.
“I love you, sister. How our mother has treated you has been a constant source of unrest; it has torn my soul asunder. I wish things could have been different. I wish them with all of what heart I possess, as I have every single day since your miraculous birth.”
“I… I…”
“Well, answer him,” I laughed.
“Thank you,” Aurora said.
They were just two little words, but they were important ones. To see the Nordic prince take his younger sister in his arms and hug her touched even someone as cold as I.
I'd have stepped away and left them to their private moment if not for the chasm at my back and the silence shattered by Ragnar's deep, growling voice.
“You have just forfeited your position, brother!” he bellowed across the fractured landscape.
I saw none of the three brothers through the storm, obscured as they were, but it appeared at least one of them saw us.
“Ignore him.” Grella released his sister and brushed himself clear of deposited snow.
“Don't I always?” she replied.
“Hmm.”
“Was that a, hmm, of disapproval?”
“Reluctant acceptance.”
“Did your brother just crack a joke?” I asked, faking amazement.
“I can spare one,” he said with a shake of his head. “So, dear sister, now you know you are not the straggler you imagined, will you not permit me to escort you home?”
“No, but I will let you help us.”
“In what way?” he said, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
“We seek the rest of the Sunyin monks, their father, and those that hold them captive.”
“And who is that?”
“Princess Chantelle.”
“Queen Chantelle of all Europa,” I corrected.
The cracking of Grella's clenched knuckles sounded like thunder in an electric storm. Having been hit by them, I knew the similarity to be well observed.
“Chantelle,” he rumbled with a voice like an oceanic swell.
“Yes,” replied Aurora.
“Unfortunately,” said I.
“That woman, if she can be termed such, is a disgrace to all I stand for.”
“You were not pleased to attend her wed
ding?” I inserted into the conversation.
“I had no choice, none of us did.”
“Why?”
“Mother commanded us to attend.”
“Do you always do as she says?”
“Of course, as my brothers and sisters shall one day do for me.”
“I sense Ragnar may struggle with that.”
“He may, but it will do him no good.” Grella straightened and gave a cursory look to his stranded kin.
I pressed home my advantage. “Why did your mother force you to go?”
“She did not force.”
“Ask then!” I exclaimed, then apologised. “I'm sorry, Grella, I grow tired of the games others play. They are never in my best interest.”
“Ours is not to question why?” he said solemnly.
“Don't you think it's about time you did? We did?” I implored.
“You are so young, Jean. When you are as old as I, you will find that respect counts for much. I respect the Hierarchy and what they hold as their values.”
“The Hierarchy didn't even know you existed. I can assure you, much as I hate her, it was not Chantelle, nor her accursed husband who requested you attend their wedding.”
“But?”
“Now do you see, brother? There is far more to all this than meets the eye.” Aurora placed a hand on the shoulder of the puzzled prince.
“I trust our mother with my life,” he eventually said. His look was less convincing.
“We both know that is not the entire truth,” said Aurora and fixed him with her sparkling eyes.
Grella looked at me, his expression pain-filled, then to Aurora, and back again to the extinguished horizon containing his brothers.
“What would you have me do?” he said, his head hung low.
I bowed and replied, “Only what you believe to be right. I would never ask for more. I think, and I say this with the greatest of respect, that I trust you, Grella. This may not sound like much, but I can assure you, I trust very few besides myself and even then the trust is sketchy.” I thrust my hand to the prince, who looked at it askew, then took and shook it.
“If, and I say if, I opposed my mother's wishes, what would I be doing it for?”
“I can say with some certainty that Chantelle and her band of fools wish above all else for just one thing.”
Hunter Hunted (The Eternals Book 2) Page 19