“I know that the king has visited twice for counsel, both before he was crowned as their king.”
Diane smiled. “Yes, Garrett Traxx has been a good and generous friend to the Valley Lodge. Before him, when his father was still a child, the family’s patriarch received information from a Seer. The Seers back then were just learning of their powers. Raw, unrefined talent often led to wild outbursts in public, causing our kind to become shunned by the society that struggled to come to grips with its own survival when so many perished around them. Traxx took the young Seer’s vision and tried to preempt it by attacking the Vultures to kill their leader.”
Darci’s head snapped upward and she blinked hard. “The band of wild men and the Vultures are the same group?”
Diane nodded. “There’s a long history between the two, most of it either kept secret within the family or lost to time. If the elder Traxx had remained in the city to lead the defense, they might have had a chance against the Vultures. Instead, he was off trying to stop the vision from happening and stuck his arm into a demonbroc nest. In the end, he still ended up in the city where he should have been all along.”
“So, we just wait until they come asking for help?” Darci asked. “What if a lot of people die because of our inaction?”
“It’s not our place to try and change the future. The gods allow us the free will to act within the boundaries they’ve set—how we get there is the point of being alive—but the endgame is predetermined.”
She knew better than to ask the Mistress about religion, she wasn’t a priestess. Creed, the town at the beginning of the trail, sent their priests and any who would hear them, to discuss religion with the Seers every two weeks. “Then what’s the point of any of this if our end is already predetermined?”
“Well, we can’t give up. That would guarantee us a spot in Hell.”
Darci wasn’t religious like most of the others at the Valley Lodge, but she knew enough to understand what the Mistress meant. “So, I’m supposed to train my replacement for the future, when the Traxx family will come to us for help against the Vultures, but I can’t go to them and help now?”
“In my vision, you are here in the lodge, not in Homelake, when the time to assist the Traxx comes.”
The missing piece fell into place in Darci’s mind. She’d been confused about why she needed to stay here and that final part of Diane’s dream made her understand. The Traxx patriarch had gone off and done all of those things to stop the attack on his city, but in the end, he’d returned to find it unprepared for the attack that he may have instigated. It didn’t matter if she left to go to Homelake, because she was preordained to be here, at the lodge when the Traxx needed her. She was better off using her time to train a replacement and ensuring that the valley was secure against raiders after she was gone. The concept made sense to her now.
“I guess I’ll stay here, then. Who will be the new head of security?”
“You will remain the head of security while you’re here. Garth will be your eventual replacement. When you return, the position will be yours once again.”
“Okay,” she sighed. “We’ll begin training immediately so when the time comes, the valley won’t be caught unprepared.”
*****
“Where have those two gotten off to?” Tanya muttered.
“They were just right there,” Frederick replied as he pointed at the outcropping of bare rock where they’d last seen the children. “They couldn’t have gotten far.”
Tanya cupped her hands around her mouth and called out, “Jade! Jensen! Come on you two. Time for desert!” That’ll bring them running.
She watched for a moment and then slowly stood up. “What’s wrong?” Frederick asked.
“Come on,” Tanya answered. “Let’s go get the kids; it’s time to go back anyways.”
Her little family had enjoyed an entire afternoon together free of distractions, but now it was time to return to reality. Frederick had to return for his shift on the city gate and Tanya was supposed to attend a dinner with several of the most influential merchants in Homelake.
Frederick folded the blanket that they’d been sitting on, while she called for the children once more, “Jensen, it’s time to go back! Jade… Where are they?”
Before she could blink, everything was stowed quickly in Frederick’s daypack with his typical military proficiency. She smiled at him, still unconcerned with the children’s whereabouts. When they’d first begun dating so long ago, he’d been an awkward youth. In the years since the twins were born, he’d blossomed into a confident, capable father and soldier. He was now a sergeant in the Traxx Guard, responsible for an entire formation in battle and Tanya couldn’t have been more proud of him.
She gripped his hand as they walked to where they’d last seen the twins a moment before. The lake was far behind them and the children had been playing on the side closest to town, so she wasn’t too worried about any them. They hadn’t seen a demonbroc in Colorado in years and the snake population was likely still hibernating, the two had just wandered off out of earshot—or they were purposely ignoring her because they were busy getting into trouble.
Tanya loved being a mother. Although the twins had been a surprise because that bumbling idiot, Dr. Ephraim, didn’t know how to recognize that a woman had two babies inside of her, they’d been an absolute blessing from the gods. Her mother called them the “two-for-one special” and all of The Keep staff seemed to genuinely adore the children. Of course, they were only two years old, so it was hard to find fault with their antics.
The twins were currently figuring out how to try their mother’s patience, though. Lately, it seemed like all they wanted to do was get in trouble and find ways to make a mess of everything. Clarissa, the children’s nursemaid, assured Tanya that the behavior was perfectly normal for children their age, even if she was the recipient of most of their mischief.
Tanya peeked around the corner of a small rock outcropping. “Boo!” she said, laughing. The children weren’t there.
“Jade! Jensen! Where are you?” she yelled again, her voice echoing between the exposed rocks that jutted randomly from the soft grass.
“Mama!” one of the twins cried. The echo distorted the voice, making it so she couldn’t tell which of them it was.
“Jade?” Frederick added his voice to the mix.
“Papa!”
“This way,” he stated, pushing past the princess.
They searched frantically, calling out and using their child’s voice to locate the children. “How’d they get so far away?” Tanya asked in frustration, not expecting him to answer.
Frederick found the twins near the edge of the road leading into the mountains. Jensen cried out when he saw his mother and began to run to her, but stopped. He turned slowly back to where he’d been crouched when they found them.
“Papa. Sissy,” the boy said, pointed at his sister lying still on her back near another of the exposed rocks.
“Oh, gods!” Tanya shrieked and ran toward her children.
Frederick reached them first, picking up Jade. Her body was limp in his arms.
The princess scooped up Jensen as she ran, stopping only a foot from Frederick. “Is she… Is she…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
“She’s breathing,” Frederick answered. He set her down and began to feel around her head. “There’s no bumps or blood.”
“Check for a snake bite,” Tanya directed.
He pulled her pants down and turned the child gently. Seeing no injuries, he pulled up her shirt and then rolled her onto her side to examine her back. “I don’t see anything.”
Jensen squirmed in her arms, crying for his sister. “Then what—”
She stopped as the toddler began to mumble. The words were incoherent, childish murmurings.
“Jade, baby. Baby, what’s wrong?” Tanya asked as she transferred Jensen into Frederick’s arms and knelt beside her daughter.
Jade’s eyes o
pened and she struggled to sit up, pushing her chubby body with her hands. Tanya helped her into a sitting position and the girl stared toward the mountains.
She lifted her little arm and pointed. Tanya turned to see what she pointed at, but only saw the mountains, still covered in snow. Jade began to babble again, the words difficult to understand.
Two words stood out clearly, though. The girl said, “Murder” and, “kidnap.” Both were words she was certain that her children had never heard before.
EIGHT
The terrain was rough, made worse by the ill-fitting shoes of a dead man she wore. Blisters had long since torn away from the joints where Freya’s toes met her feet, causing each step to become an exercise in courage and a lesson in pain as she wandered northward. Ever northward.
They’d been on the run from the Guild, from Lucas and the Contest for almost four weeks, avoiding the small settlements scattered along their path and staying in the trees. Despite his recent faults, Varan had become quite adept at raiding hamlets for scraps of food, often returning covered in blood. Freya knew that on those occasions, he’d likely murdered guards or anyone who happened upon him in the darkness, but chose to look the other way. They were starving.
The constant threat of violence made her sick to her stomach and she had an uncomfortable burn that seemed to come from her intestines, spreading all the way up to her throat, making her want to either cough or catch her breath. Neither worked. Eventually the pain would subside when she didn’t allow herself to think about their situation or interact with Varan.
While neither of them saw evidence of pursuit, every new sound caused Freya’s heart to leap from her chest. The trip toward the forest of Caleb’s vision may have been physically and mentally tormenting for the young woman, but by gods, she was free and she knew that she could never go back to that kind of life. She’d rather die in the wild than be turned into a slave once again.
If Freya was rattled, she believed that Varan was truly haunted. The poor man had trouble sleeping and was increasingly paranoid. Since their escape, he’d awoken constantly, interrupting her sleep. He gave half-hearted apologies and told her that the images of his brother’s headless body twitching at his feet kept him from rest. Added to the lack of sleep, Varan often forced them to move after they’d already made camp, fleeing from imagined pursuers, adding to the stress they already felt.
Every time she tried to talk to him, it seemed like the man was on the verge of scratching his own eyes out and then strangling her. Freya finally stopped talking to him four days ago, keeping communication to the essentials, like food and rest. It was a precarious situation for her. The man she’d latched herself to—and gambled her life with—was rapidly going insane, haunted by the things he’d been forced to do in the service of the Guild. She wasn’t quite ready to abandon him and strike out on her own just yet, but it wouldn’t take too much more to push her over the edge.
Even though the issues with Varan made her wary, Freya was truly glad to be free of her life of servitude. When she allowed herself to forget about the constant pain in her feet, borderline starvation, her traveling companion’s ever-loosening grip on sanity, and the fear of being hunted down and tortured for murdering two of Lucas’ men, she marveled at the outside world’s wonders. The land they traveled through in their never-ending journey north toward the forest was beautiful.
The giant trees that grew along their route dwarfed the ones that she was used to seeing around Trinity. When she first saw them, she’d been frightened that they’d topple over and crush her; surely, there was no way something so large could remain upright. But they’d passed that small stand of trees with no problems and now they were truly in what Varan called a forest, following a path that wound between the massive tree trunks.
They’d learned after they entered the shade of the forest that the soft, damp earth made for poor sleeping ground—which added to Varan’s inability to rest. The constant wetness soaked past their thin clothing and into their skin, chilling them to the bone in the early spring evenings. They’d thought to use the giant mounds of earth and pine needles as a way to get up off the ground, but those ended up being nests for millions of massive, angry black ants, so they settled for sleeping on the ground.
She was in the lead of their little group now. Varan stumbled along, often talking to himself and he’d forget where they were going, so she’d been forced to take charge, leading them northward. Freya learned how to determine their direction of travel based on the position of the sun and the prevailing winds that blew from left to right across their route.
“Top of this hill and we’ll rest,” she mumbled, no longer caring if Varan understood her and not sure if she would have minded if he continued without her.
The hill took them half an hour to traverse. As Freya crested the ridge, a wide valley spread out below them, bisected by a large river. How are we ever going to cross that? She glanced at Varan to see if he recognized anything or if he was just as clueless as he’d been the last few days.
“Hey,” she said, snapping her fingers in front of the gladiator’s eyes. Freya watched him focus on her fingers, then trail to her hand, next her arm and finally to her face. “Do you recognize what Chaos—what your brother, Caleb, told you?”
“Go north. Find a forest and all will be revealed to you.”
Freya sighed. He’d said the same thing repeatedly since the Contest, except back then, she’d thought that he had a plan besides ‘go north.’ She gestured toward a rock and ordered him to sit so she could reach their supplies in his pack. Calling it a pack was an overstatement. It was really a long-sleeved shirt with the holes tied off that they’d filled with a few vegetables and salted meat that Varan took from farms along the way.
She built a ring of rocks and then lit a few pieces of wood on fire. High up on the ridge, the smoke would be visible for miles, but the soggy twigs and leaves in the valleys were too wet to burn, so they had no choice except to set up their cooking fires where they could be seen—if anyone were looking. It was a risk she was willing to take to avoid getting worms from the meat.
Whatever it was that Varan stole this last time was a red meat of some kind, not the white of birds and chickens that they’d occasionally been lucky enough to snatch alive. The raw, salted meat went onto a stick and she propped it low over the fire before moving out of the smoke to sit on a boulder.
The river was a major obstacle. Even from as far away as they were, she could tell that it was wide. Given the time of year and height of the mountains around it, the damn thing was probably fast too. “Can you swim?”
Varan’s head snapped around from where he’d been staring blankly northward. “What?”
“Can you swim?” she repeated. He tilted his head in confusion and she sighed. “The water down there in the valley will be deeper than you can touch and the snowmelt will mean that it’s fast. Do you know how to swim?”
“Uh, no. I never learned.”
“Figures,” she muttered under her breath. Before the slavers took her, she’d learned how to swim and spear fish for food. Although, it had been years, maybe even more than a decade, since she’d been in water deeper than a bath.
Varan was going to be a problem. Is it time to leave him and head out on my own? She could easily escape him by swimming across the river and then find a town somewhere that she could stay… And do what? I don’t have any skills besides cleaning and keeping men entertained. What else could I do?
She thought about it for a few moments and then wandered over to the fire to turn the meat. Cleaning a rich man’s home was an option, but one that she doubted would need to be filled by someone who wasn’t a slave. And she certainly wasn’t going back into the business of keeping men entertained, so what other options did she have besides sticking with Varan until something came along?
“I think we’re close.”
She looked up in alarm. Varan’s words startled her; he’d only responded to her questions in rec
ent days, not volunteering anything himself. “What did you say?”
Freya watched her travel companion and former lover closely for any indication that he’d say something coherent once more, but the moment passed. He stared down into the valley, frown lines crinkling across his forehead.
“Ugh,” she grunted in frustration and pulled a hunk of meat from the stick, thrusting it into the air in front of Varan’s face. “Eat.”
He took the meat and she waited until he started cramming pieces of it into his mouth before turning her back on him to eat in peace. Greasy fluid dripped down her chin as she took a bite of meat from the stick. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste.
Her mood began to lighten. The view from the ridgeline was beautiful and the ache in her legs seemed to diminish as she chewed. It was a pleasant afternoon, she was free and Varan stated that they were nearing their goal. The idea of stopping the constant movement definitely brought a smile to her face. She longed to find somewhere safe to settle down and possibly raise a family one day. I hope the forest in Caleb’s dream is that place.
The food disappeared quickly and Freya allowed them a moment to rest before struggling to her throbbing feet. “Come on, Varan. It’s time to go. I want to find a way across the river before nightfall.”
He stood up wordlessly. At least he can still follow simple instructions. They eased their way down the hill, allowing gravity to carry them forward. It didn’t take long before her legs were churning almost on their own as she stepped gingerly down toward the valley below.
The journey down from the heights took most of the afternoon. By the time they reached the banks of the river, most of the valley was shrouded in the shadows of western mountain peaks. She appraised the water and then looked to Varan.
It was easily thirty or forty feet to the far shore. Large tree limbs, bundles of sticks and various debris passed in front of them, carried on by the river’s rapid current. There was no way he’d be able to wade across the river; they’d need to find an intact bridge or acquire a boat somehow.
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