Journey to Queyon: The Innocence Cycle, Book 3

by J D Abbas

  She opened to him, not just her lips but her heart, drinking in his love and drawing on his joy. Suddenly, she pulled back. “I just realized something. When you touched the baby just now there was no intense reaction, no jolt, just a wiggle and a warm sensation. Do you think that’s a good sign?”

  Silvandir’s mouth went from a gape to broad grin as tears brimmed his eyes. “I’ll take it to mean she’s grown accustomed to my touch and welcomes me as her father.” Tears brimmed his eyes. “Perhaps we’ll even have more children someday.”

  Then his mouth found hers again. Swept up in his hope and the possibility of that future, a thought she never dared entertain crept in: Or maybe we’ll find my other children.

  Chapter 53

  Celdorn came for Elena and Silvandir about an hour later. They’d been lying, comfortably entwined, but as soon as the tent flap moved, they sat up and straightened their clothes.

  Celdorn stuck his head in. “The men will pack up your tent, and we’ll be ready to depart.”

  Silvandir rose and helped Elena to her feet. With a quick kiss and an embrace, they left the comfort and safety of their solitude for whatever lay ahead. Silvandir squeezed her hand. “I’ll be right by your side. Do not fear.”

  Nakhona was waiting for Elena and bent to the ground as soon as she emerged. With little conversation, Elena mounted, followed by Celdorn and Silvandir. The men quickly collapsed the tent and stowed it away in a wagon that pulled up.

  When they were ready to leave the camp, Charaq approached, followed by Mishon and Waadar. Elena flinched and sucked in a breath at the sight of his blond curls even though she felt no energy move toward her. Charaq dipped his chin to Elena and Silvandir but spoke to Celdorn. “Mishon has asked to accompany the Lady Elena as we move forward.” Leaning in closer, he whispered, “He believes she needs him.” A blush spread over his cheeks as he spoke, and he dropped his gaze. “I can’t convince him otherwise. Would it be a bother to have him join you?”

  Celdorn turned to Elena, his brows raised. “I have no objection,” she said. “I love Mishon.”

  “As do I,” Celdorn agreed. “You will join us as well, Charaq.”

  The burly Guardian shifted his weight and scratched the side of his beard. “I don’t mean to be a nuisance, but Mishon insists that Waadar accompany him. He fears the boy will not do well without him. And that may be true. Waadar will allow no other Guardian near him, but he’ll obey Mishon’s every command.”

  Celdorn glanced at the boy and smiled. “Rest easy, Charaq. He is welcome as well. If we are forced to fight our way through the Pallanors, you will be responsible to keep them safe.”

  “Of course, sir. I would have it no other way.” Charaq wiped his brow, his shoulders relaxing as if relieved of a burden. He hurried to assist the boys in climbing onto the back of their small horse—which was an average size horse, but dwarfed when alongside the Ilqazar—then Charaq hauled himself into his own saddle.

  Mishon beamed as he rode forward, looking confident astride his steed. Waadar squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his arms around Mishon’s waist.

  “Not so tight. I have to breathe,” Mishon said, wiggling. Then he patted the boy’s arm. “Don’t worry, Waadar. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Welcome, Mishon,” Elena called.

  “Silothani, my lady,” Mishon replied.

  “And Waadar,” she added. The boy dipped his chin but didn’t open his eyes. She suppressed a giggle.

  “Looks like we’re ready,” Celdorn said. He urged Zhalor toward the north end of the valley. Elena and Silvandir followed with Mishon and Waadar close behind. The rest of Celdorn’s inner circle joined them as they moved across the field. Elena was relieved to see Mikaelin, with mask and covering in place, take up the rear, a safe distance from the boys.

  Elena forced herself not to look at the pass, but instead scanned the assembled companies. The children and their Guardians were at the south end of the camp. They would not be walking or in the wagons when they crossed the mountains; for this, the children would ride with their Guardians, which would make it easier for the warriors to protect them.

  Zarandiel waited at the north end of the valley with a small group of his men. Ilqazar formed a V on the far side of them, their focus on the mountain. The rest of the Marach contingent provided a rearguard at the south end of the valley.

  “Anything to report?” Celdorn asked Zarandiel as they joined him.

  “Only what you see before you,” Zarandiel replied, pointing toward the pass. “It seems we’ll not cross the Pallanors without a battle. Whatever that thing is, it is not welcome.”

  Elena looked toward the void still gaping at the summit, noticeable for what was not there—no color, no movement, no life. Her body convulsed with a chill that radiated from her core. She reined Nakhona to the left so she wouldn’t have to see it.

  While the men discussed strategies and formations, Nakhona grew restless. She pranced around the field as if longing to play. Elena didn’t bother to stop her since the men were busy debating tactics, and it would probably be some time before the children were ready to move out.

  Nakhona broke into a full gallop. Elena laughed with delight, enjoying the thrill of the wind upon her face, the rhythm of the filly’s stride. Nakhona circled the field then galloped due north. Elena felt no need to rein her in until she noticed the other Ilqazar parting and allowing her to ride to the front of the herd.

  “Nakhona, stop!” Elena yanked on the reins. “Celdorn and Zhalor will be angry. We’re supposed to stay within the protection of the Ilqazar.

  Do not fear, my lady. I know what I am doing.

  “No, don’t do this. It’s too dangerous.”

  ~

  Silvandir, hearing Elena’s cries, immediately urged Windam to pursue her. He was surprised and dismayed when his steed glanced at Zhalor and stood his ground, refusing to obey. Celdorn and Elbrion tried with their mounts and got the same results.

  Suddenly, Mikaelin flew past them on Lazhur. “Stop her, she’s in trouble!”

  But the wall of Ilqazar closed up behind Elena, ending his pursuit.

  “Let me pass!” Mikaelin kicked and shoved at the Ilqazar, his voice filled with fury. “Get out of my way. Move!” But the stallions wouldn’t budge. He spun around and headed straight for Zhalor. “Call your stallions back,” he demanded of the prince of the Ilqazar, to which he received a snort and a shake of the head. “Anakh will kill her. Elena doesn’t have the strength or the skill to oppose her. You’re sending her to her death, you foul beast.”

  Silence, human. Though stunned and barely able to breathe, Silvandir relayed his words. Lazhur, stand with your brothers, not your rider.

  Instead, Lazhur sidestepped and turned away from his prince.

  “Celdorn, do something,” Mikaelin demanded.

  Celdorn jumped from his mount and faced Zhalor nose to nose. “Why are you standing in our way? You vowed to serve and protect Elena. Order your stallions to obey.”

  No, my lord, Zhalor replied. It is futile.

  The world spun as Silvandir spoke for Zhalor. His eyes went to the mountain, where he saw Nakhona carrying Elena toward the summit—and her death.

  “You can’t mean that.” Celdorn grabbed the sides of Zhalor’s noseband and shook it. “We can still stop her.”

  Nakhona is doing what she must, the stallion said evenly. And we will not intervene.

  Celdorn turned to Elbrion. “My visions ...” His words fell away as he paled and dropped to his knees, a man gutted.

  Silvandir gawked at Zhalor, shaken to the core by the stallion’s response. He had always had the utmost respect for the Ilqazar, trusted them implicitly. How could they betray Elena like this?

  Mikaelin cursed and rode off, declaring he’d find a way to get around the blasted Ilqazar.

  Numbed and unable to move, Silvandir joined Celdorn and Elbrion in tracking Elena with their eyes.

  ~

  “Nakhona, stop,” Ele
na begged, her eyes drawn to the ever widening void on the horizon. She heard that sickeningly sweet voice again—louder this time. “What are you doing?” she demanded of the filly.

  Taking you home.

  Elena’s body went cold. “You? You’re betraying me?” A sick realization struck her. “Wh-who are you?”

  Trust me. You will have more power on the other side.

  “I don’t want that kind of power.” Elena’s protests did nothing to slow Nakhona’s gait.

  She glanced over her shoulder, hoping to find Celdorn or Elbrion in pursuit, but all she saw was the wall of stallions and the Guardians far beyond. There was no hope they’d be able to follow. No one was going to appear to rescue her. She was on her own this time.

  Elena turned her attention back to the mountain, which Nakhona was climbing at an alarming pace. Undaunted by the incline, the filly moved with the speed of the wind as if she were on the flattest of surfaces. Elena considered jumping, but the fall would certainly kill her. She wasn’t ready to choose death—not yet.

  Anakh’s beckoning voice grew louder with each mile that passed. Elena thought she sounded almost giddy with delight.

  Elena called to her adai with her heart. She cried to Yaelmargon. She begged for help from the Jhadhela as the images from her nightmares returned with ferocious clarity: the sensation of being devoured by the void, immersed in utter malevolence and vileness, creatures clawing at her flesh, tearing it from her bones with consummate hatred, laughing gleefully at her distress and enlivened by her agony.

  The vision of their mockery roused a rage within Elena. She would not go without a fight, would not idly comply while evil erupted and devoured Qabara along with those she loved. As they approached the void, she drew her sword and let loose a scream of fury.

  ~

  In a twisted, distorted, mesmerizing display, which seemed more dream than reality, Celdorn watched Elena begin to shine, growing more brilliant the farther she rode from them. Maybe it was only an illusion fueled by his desperation or a trick of the eye, but it looked as if Nakhona were transporting a star that had split open, erupting with new life, manifested in explosions of magnificent and diverse colors. With the display, hope rose in his heart. Perhaps her light could overpower Anakh.

  As Elena approached the void, a high-pitched whine filled the air. The black emptiness pulsated and throbbed as it doubled in size. Everything on the far side of the pass had disappeared; only a colorless space remained.

  Celdorn froze in horror as his premonition took form before his eyes. The gaping void waiting for Elena, calling to her. The girl riding straight toward it. Turn aside, little one. You don’t have to do this. You have a choice. Tears blurred his vision as he watched her precious light enter into the depths of the void. Flashes of her illumination bent and distorted as if striking solid objects inside the bulging gap. Then the void snapped shut, like a mouth around its favorite morsel, devouring her brilliance and her life.

  In that brief instant, with no great battle, no magnificent display, it was over. Only the narrow line of the void remained.

  And all fell silent.

  Chapter 54

  Celdorn collapsed onto his knees. A groan rose and twisted into some sort of guttural wail. It felt as if his insides had been sucked into the void along with Elena. His body curled into the agony. He’d promised to protect her. Vowed to be a good father. He’d failed, utterly failed.

  If only he’d shared his vision, given warning, perhaps she would have fought harder. As Nakhona bore her away, did she wait for their pursuit? Did she expect that they would save her? Fight for her? It crushed him to think that she might have felt abandoned in her last moments.

  We are your home. The words came back to him like a kick in the gut.

  Against all hope, he called out to her. You will always have a place with me, little one. Always. I’ll hold you in my shattered heart ...

  Sobs racked his body; all thought swept away in the flood.

  ~

  Elbrion stood immobile as hope dropped to the floor of his soul and shattered into a thousand tiny shards. The fragments sliced through his inner world with such force his flesh was left shredded and bloody. Shimmering drops of his life’s blood slid down his darkened cheeks.

  He had heard Elena’s final cries echoing in the now-silent corridors of his mind. All the skills he had learned in manipulating the light and training for battle were useless; just as in Shefali, he could do nothing. His heart had followed her into the void but had been shut out with a snap of its jaws. He prayed that the words of love he called out to her had been received.

  He did not know if she was alive in another place, a place where Anakh ruled, being tormented, or if she had moved on to the realm beyond death. He had no sense, no impression at all. He prayed for the latter. The thought of her undergoing further torture—his mind could not go there.

  His eyes lifted to the empty sky. I do not understand your ways. I have served you. We have served you. This child was innocent. She was yours. How could you? How could you betray her like this? I cannot continue to serve in a world that is so unjust. I cannot watch any more innocents die. You have to give us something to hold onto. Some sign that it is not all for naught. I thought she was our sign. But she is gone. I... I... Words slipped away.

  Elbrion dropped to his knees, liquid eyes fixed on the summit, a hopeless, hollow man.

  ~

  Silvandir shoved away from Windam, shocked by his betrayal, lost as he stared ahead, unmoving, unfeeling. He’d had no premonition, no warning. He’d heard no internal cries, felt no connection with her heart as she pulled farther and farther away. Nothing.

  He turned his back to the mountain and the void that had consumed the love of his life and his unborn daughter, all he held most dear. He had promised her he’d protect her—them. In the end, he was worse than useless.

  She—he couldn’t allow himself to say her name—had awakened love, passion, hope, in the frozen waters of his soul. The ice had already returned. He would never wrap his body around his young wife, giving in to all the passion he had held in tight rein. He would never know his daughter, never hold that precious life in his hands. A fierce tremor ran through him.

  He had to lock such thoughts away, or he’d never move again.

  A stoic, calloused facade imprinted on his warrior’s sarcophagus, where he would live entombed the remainder of his days.

  ~

  “Waadar, wake up!” Mishon’s frantic voice broke into Celdorn’s thoughts.

  When Celdorn turned, he found the boy was on his knees next to his young friend, who was pale as death. He got to them just after Charaq.

  “What happened?” Charaq asked Mishon as he pressed the back of his hand to the boy’s head.

  “I don’t know.” Mishon squeezed Waadar’s hand. “When the lady was going up the mountain, Waadar started flapping his arms and pointing at her, trying to tell me something ... like he knew something bad was going to happen. Then when that black thing closed around her, he got stiff as a tree and fell backwards.” Mishon’s little lips pulled down and quivered. “Is he ... is he dead?”

  Charaq put his ear to the boy’s chest. “No, his heart’s beating and he’s breathing. Not deeply, but he’s alive.”

  “Dalgo,” Celdorn called. When the healer approached, he pointed to Waadar. “See what you can do.”

  Mishon sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Don’t you die on me too, Waadar.”

  Celdorn’s grief grabbed at his throat, and he had to walk away.

  Just then, Mikaelin approached at a gallop. “Celdorn, we have to pursue her. She’s still alive. I can feel her.” He reined in his stallion, his voice screaming his desperation.

  Celdorn’s shoulders hunched, and he shook his head. Mikaelin hadn’t seen the visions, hadn’t heard what Elena had shared about hers. He was clinging to the impossible.

  “What’s wrong with you? We can’t just give up. She needs us. We hav
e to—”

  Mikaelin’s words were eclipsed by a sudden uproar on the mountain. All eyes immediately fixed on the place where the void had closed. Ominous storm clouds rolled over the peaks with mighty claps of thunder and streaks of lightning worthy of Thul himself. The thunder grew so intense the peaks on either side of the summit rippled and distorted. It was several minutes before Celdorn realized the earth itself pulsated with a heartbeat of its own. Even that pounding throb was soon drowned out by an ear-piercing squeal that consumed the air. The men covered their ears and hunched over. Mercifully, it lasted less than a minute, though long enough to leave men crumpled on the ground in agony.

  The pulsation, however, grew stronger until it pierced to the very core of the earth. Everything around and under the Guardians shook with the steady cadence. Then all at once, the mountain erupted. Rocks catapulted from the summit, starting an avalanche.

  Hundreds of massive fragments tumbled down the face of the mountain, gaining speed as they fell. Celdorn watched in stunned disbelief as the shape of the rocks began to alter. Arms and legs appeared out of nowhere as they rolled, until the boulders were no longer tumbling, but running down the mountainside—straight toward them.

  Ice shot through Celdorn’s veins. A granite fist enwrapped his chest and squeezed as the rock creatures of the Tulegar Gap surrounded him once again. Those creatures had nearly killed him once; he didn’t know if he had the strength or will to survive a second battle.

  Zhalor gave a fierce whinny, yanking Celdorn back to the present. He galloped off toward the Ilqazar line, which opened to allow him passage. When he reached the forefront, the stallion reared and gave a call to battle that echoed in the foothills, signaling his kinsmen to follow his charge.