Journey To The Rift (Coimirceoirí: Guardians of the Marked Ones)

by Cathi Shaw

  She kept wondering what she could have done differently, but every time she went over the events leading up to the horrific end, she was at a loss to think of anything she could have changed. It was as if the mother and her babe were doomed from the beginning.

  But if that was true then why did the Elders even bother to bring her into the birthing room. If their intention was to kill both of them, why did they need Brijit to try to deliver the child?

  Before she could analyze it in full, the Elder knights were telling Brijit and Weylon to mount their horses.

  “What was the purpose in this?” Weylon demanded but the Elder knights ignored him. Bellasiel, who had been inside the decrepit shack when they arrived, seemed to have disappeared as quickly as she had come.

  As they prepared to leave, Brijit felt another wave of sadness wash over her. She had barely made it out the front door of the cottage under Weylon’s support before she had been violently ill in the bushes. She had helped birth many children in her life, but she had never seen anything as tragic as what had happened that morning. Brijit had seen mothers die in childbirth, but she had never seen anyone want to harm a newborn, never mind savagely kill one as Bellasiel had.

  Ana had been far too young to die but what she had suggested to Brijit in that upstairs room was far more troubling than even her death or that of her child. That the Elders were somehow to blame for Ana’s death. Had they known the girl was Kurunii? Brijit assumed they had.

  What had happened after Ana’s death, what Brijit had seen on the body of the baby, was even more troubling. She closed her eyes but tears pooled beneath her lids and spilled down her cheeks.

  “Brijit.” She looked up blindly to where Weylon was by her side.

  “Shield yourself for now and just ride,” he said softly but with a warning edge in his voice. She met his dark brown eyes and understanding dawned. He wanted her to hide her emotional response from the Elders. It was dangerous for her to be too distraught. Coimirceoirí were to act on Elder’s orders without question. Taking a deep breath, she nodded slightly and then turned her mount to follow him.

  They traveled for hours away from the village where Ana had died. The ride was silent. Brijit returned to her earlier musings. If the Elders wanted the child and mother dead, why would they risk the Coimirceoirí seeing them. What was going on?

  She straightened in her saddle as she realized with a jolt that the Elders must not have known if they wanted the child dead. It was obvious that they cared nothing for the mother. Poor Ana had been left to suffer for what had to have been hours before Brijit was brought to her. By then it was too late for Brijit to do anything more than catch the child. If the Elders had cared about Ana’s wellbeing at all, they would have made sure she was comfortable.

  It was the infant they were concerned about. Brijit was sure of it. She wondered who the child’s father was. Brijit had no doubt the child’s father was an Elder. Which Elder she would never know. The knights had hurried Weylon and her from the village before they could ask any questions.

  It was that mark on the child’s shoulder that seemed to have determined his death. As soon as Bellasiel saw it, she killed the child. Brijit wasn’t so sure that he would have been killed if that mark had been missing. But Ana had been sure the Elders would take her child. Once again, Brijit wondered what it could mean. She remembered the conversation her friends had overheard about the Prophecy and a mark and the beginning of something.

  Looking at the road ahead of her, she wished more than anything that she could see Serena and Elsa and talk over what had happened in that village with her friends. Together the three of them might be able to piece the puzzle today. But Brijit was alone with only a sliver of the truth. She had to try to figure this out on her own, and she didn’t think she was capable of doing so.

  Despair washed over her in waves. Delivering a baby was always an emotional experience, but delivering one and losing not just the child but the mother as well was devastating. Brijit knew she couldn’t afford to think about it now. Every time her mind threatened to drift back to what had happened, she redirected her attention to the road in front of them.

  Her eyes landed on Weylon’s broad back. She hadn’t told him too much about what she knew of the Elders. She hadn’t shared with him all she learned in Raspella’s rooms or everything she had overheard the morning before they left. And she certainly had not shared with him what her friends had discovered from their hiding place in the wardrobe. She looked at those shoulders for a while, considering.

  She knew that Weylon was trying to piece together what had happened to Ana and her child as well. She also knew that he seemed to sense that she had seen the mark before. She fully expected that he would question her once they arrived at camp and the Elders left them.

  Maybe it was time for Brijit to start trusting him.

  #

  It was late afternoon when they finally stopped for the night. As per usual, the Elders left her and Weylon alone in their encampment without a word. Weylon dismounted and set about preparing the camp for the night, tethering their mounts and making a fire. Brijit sat on a small tree stump near the fire pit Weylon constructed. He let her be, not intruding on her thoughts. But she was grateful when he dropped a blanket around her shivering shoulders. Thoughts of what she had witnessed filled her mind. She couldn’t stop wondering what the Elders’ purposes were.

  They had clearly wanted her assistance in the birthing process but had brought her to the house too late. And once Ana and her child were dead, they wanted her gone as quickly as possible. Why did they need her there in the first place?

  If the child had not had that mark, what would have become of him? She remembered Ana’s frenzied words. She knew the child was in danger. The Elders had savagely killed the infant, just as the villagers in Merryville had killed that little girl, seemingly on Elders’ orders. Why did the Elders want those children dead? Was it because the boy was clearly part Elder? That didn’t make sense. The child in Merryville did not seem to have any Elder blood in her. And while it was rare for Elders to mate with village girls, it wasn’t unheard of. The baby today wasn’t the first child to be born a halfling. It had to be the mark. That was the only thing that tied those two children together.

  Brijit shook her head as she stared into the flames of the fire Weylon had built. She was barely aware of him coming and sitting next to her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked after a few moments.

  Brijit nodded even as tears, sparked by Weylon’s gentle tone, pricked her eyes.

  To her surprise, Weylon reached out and rubbed her back softly but said nothing more. It was as if their relationship had shifted in that dark room. They had now truly bonded as Coimirceoirí. She thought she might begin to tell him some of what she knew.

  If she told him what she had found in Raspella’s room, what her friends had overheard and the details of Raspella’s and Gregor’s conversation, then maybe he could help her untangle this mystery. But something told her not to tell him what lay around her neck. She had seen his face when he realized that Ana was a Kurunii.

  They were both silent for a few moments, staring into the fire. “Weylon,” Brijit said softly. She felt him turn and study her face. She stared straight ahead at the fire for several minutes until she was sure she could speak without dissolving into tears.

  “I’m scared,” she admitted and then looked up at him.

  His handsome face held a thoughtful expression. He nodded in understanding. “I think you’re wise to be wary,” he said carefully. Then he paused and looked at the fire again.

  Tired of playing games, Brijit straightened and pulled away from him. When he looked at her she asked, “What do you know about our assignment?”

  Weylon’s eyes narrowed and then understanding dawned on his features. “What do you know?”

  Brijit held his gaze, her mind made up. It was time to have someone on her side. “Not much, but I think we’d better start working toget
her. For our own sakes.”

  Chapter Nine

  Several weeks after Brijit had decided to start trusting Weylon, she was chopping vegetables and adding them to the venison stew when he came and sat across from her, watching her work. She could tell he wanted to talk about something. In the past weeks they had become much more relaxed with one another, and Brijit was starting to understand the Coimirceoirí who sat across from her now. She waited patiently for him to speak his mind.

  “Have you noticed the woods are changing?” he asked her as he looked around at the trees hugging the clearing they were in.

  Brijit paused in her work and looked around. She had, in fact, noticed a marked change in the forest in the last two days. There were fewer and fewer woodland creatures and more and more trees that were dropping their leaves far too early in the season.

  She nodded at Weylon. “I have. Do you know why?”

  Weylon spread out the map on his knee and studied it for a moment. “I think we are getting closer to Jirgen Forest.”

  Brijit looked at him questioningly. She had never heard of Jirgen Forest before she had seen the name printed on the Elder map. To her it meant nothing.

  “Jirgen Forest is rumored to be a dying wood,” Weylon explained. “I don’t think we can be fully within its borders yet, but we are getting close. Legend has it that nothing grows in Jirgen, the animals have long since fled and the trees are standing skeletons.”

  Brijit shivered as she imagined a forest full of dead trees.

  “What caused an entire forest to die?” she wondered aloud as she went back to stirring the stew.

  “The Rift,” Weylon said with certainty. When he saw the confusion on her face, he continued, “I’ve heard that The Rift’s poison is spreading. Séreméla has protected Five Corners for centuries but its magikal borders are weakening, and the evil energy that makes up The Rift is slowly ebbing into the land, killing everything it touches. Jirgen Forest is the closest thing to The Rift besides…” he paused and studied the map again, “besides this forgotten Elder fortress, Tèarmann.”

  Brijit looked at the letters etched on the map where Weylon was pointing. Tèarmann.

  “That is if it still exists,” he added drily.

  “And you think that’s where we are heading?”

  Weylon nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t see where else we could be. If this map is at all accurate, and as an Elder map I have to assume it is, then there is no other place between here and the Dead Sea.”

  “But the villages we’ve just passed through weren’t on the map either. How can you be so sure that’s where we are?”

  Weylon shoved his hands into his hair, frustration on his face. He looked down at the map again. “I guess I’m just going with my gut, Brijit. I think we are going to Tèarmann, but we will have a better idea if we start to pass through Jirgen Forest. That forest is unlike any other in Five Corners.”

  Brijit shivered and Weylon noticed. He smiled at her, “Don’t worry. I have a feeling our Elder guard would not risk either of our lives. For some reason, we are important to them.”

  Brijit nodded in agreement. She didn’t know why but the Elders seemed to value their lives.

  “But, Brijit, maybe we should burn the map,” Weylon said slowly.

  She looked at him in surprise. Burning the map would mean that they couldn’t refer to it anymore. Then again, she was sure that Weylon had it memorized by now. He had studied it every chance he had.

  “Something tells me that having that map could be dangerous to our wellbeing.”

  Brijit frowned as she stirred the stew again, “But no one has tried to take it since that day in the inn.”

  Weylon nodded, “I know. But I still think we would be better to not have it with us. I already know everything that’s on it.”

  Brijit bit her lip considering. In the end, she couldn’t come up with a reason for holding onto the map. She nodded, “Okay, we’ll do what you think is best.”

  Weylon gave her a grim smile, looked down at the map one more time and then fed it into the fire beneath their stew pot. Brijit held her breath as she watched it, half expecting some Elder magik to escape the parchment while it burned, but it just shriveled up and burst into flames like any other piece of paper.

  “Hey, enough dark talk for the night, let’s talk about something lighter,” Weylon said after the map had dissolved into black ash.

  “Like what?” Brijit asked.

  He cocked his head as if thinking deeply. “Like why you decided to become Coimirceoirí?”

  Brijit frowned as she remembered her grandmother’s disappointment in her choice.

  “Uh-oh, an unhappy topic,” he said as soon as he saw her downcast expression. “Okay, let me go first. Ask me anything.”

  Brijit smiled at him, a bit disconcerted that he could read her emotions so well when she wasn’t shielded. Pushing her unease aside she asked, “Well, why did you decide to become Coimirceoirí, Weylon Forborrow?”

  “That,” he grinned, “is a great story. My older brother was a hero! And all I ever wanted to do was to follow in his footsteps.”

  Brijit smiled. As a child with no siblings, she loved hearing stories about families. “He was Coimirceoirí?”

  Weylon nodded. “Not a chosen one but he still led a very adventurous life, at least it seemed exciting to his little brothers.”

  “How many of you are there?” Brijit asked, smiling as she thought of Weylon as a small boy.

  Weylon’s face clouded a bit but then he went on with his story. “There were three of us.”

  Brijit didn’t miss the fact that he used past tense, but she pressed her lips together and waited for him to continue with his story.

  “Archer, my older brother, was ten years older than me. Fourteen years older than Ren, my younger brother. And Ren and I hero-worshipped him. Our father had died of an illness when we were very small, so Archer took on a father-like quality for Ren and I.” Weylon smiled at the memory. “Except Archer was much cooler than any father I ever knew.”

  “What happened to him?” Brijit asked, intrigued.

  Weylon’s face clouded again, and she was sorry she asked. But he shook his head and looked at her. “He was assigned to Sailsburg. The Elder he worked with traded with the men of Nasseet.”

  Brijit sucked in a breath. The Island of Nasseet was not technically part of Five Corners, lying to the south in the middle of the Sea of Arcadia. Their people were known to keep to themselves except when trading in Sailsburg.

  “Ah, I see you’ve heard of our neighbours to the south. Well, my brother had the misfortune of working for an Elder who angered the traders. To be honest, I think the Elders probably tried to skip payment.”

  Brijit gaped in horror. No one ever tried to rip off the Nasseet traders. It just wasn’t done.

  Weylon nodded. “They sent Hunters after them.”

  “No!” Hunters were special Nasseet assassins who had the ability to teleport. No one ever escaped Hunters and lived to tell about it.

  Weylon’s face was grim. “The Elders that Archer worked for thought they could get back to the safety of Séreméla before Hunters caught up to them. And they almost did. But Revuover wasn’t far enough. Everyone in their party was killed in their sleep just outside the gates of Séreméla.” Weylon swallowed hard. “Archer included.”

  “Oh, Weylon, I’m so sorry,” Brijit breathed, her heart aching for the little boy who lost the only father figure he had ever known.

  He smiled sadly. “It’s okay. Archer died doing what he loved. He lived to be Coimirceoirí. And his fire and passion for the job only made Ren and I want to join even more.”

  “He would have been proud of you,” Brijit noted.

  Weylon smiled at her. “I think he would have,” he agreed.

  “Is Ren training at Stone Mountain as well?” Brijit asked after a moment of silence.

  Now Weylon’s face darkened with pain. “Ren is dead.”

  Brijit�
�s mouth fell open. “How?”

  “My younger brother was the biggest risk taker of all the Forborrow boys. He died while trying to cross the river in spring by my home in the Outlands. The raging waters swept him away.” Weylon’s eyes shone with tears. “They found his body two weeks later. My mother never recovered. She died of heartache a few months later. I guess I wasn’t enough for her to live for now she’d lost everyone else.”

  “Oh, Weylon, I’m so sorry.” Brijit’s heart ached for him.

  His face cleared after a few moments. “But what about you Brijit Carnesîr? What made you want to become a Coimirceoirí?”

  “I’m not sure that’s a happier story,” she murmured as she scooped the stew up into their wooden bowls and handed one to him. “I always wanted to be Coimirceoirí, ever since the Elders first started to recruit me when I was six.”

  Weylon paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth, his eyes wide. “Six?! Wow, that’s an honour. Your parents must have been very proud.”

  Brijit looked down at the bowl of steaming food in her lap. “My parents died when I was an infant.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  Brijit shook her head. “It’s okay. I didn’t ever really know them. My maternal grandmother raised me.”

  He smiled, “Well at least you were with family. Was she pleased by the Coimirceoirí attention?”

  “No,” Brijit admitted bluntly. “My grandmother hated the Coimirceoirí and she never approved of my decision to train with them.” She bit her lip. “We haven’t spoken since I left her home five years ago.”

  Weylon looked sorry for her. Brijit tried for a smile and failed. The mood had gone from light and joking to very heavy in just a matter of minutes.

  “Well, I guess I chose the wrong topic for tonight,” Weylon admitted wryly as he scooped up the last of his stew. “Next time you chose the subject.”

  Brijit laughed at this. “Well, since you chose such a depressing topic, I think it’s only fair that you should be stuck doing the cleanup.”