“Did you enjoy your freedom?” he asked her. “You bring anything back worth my while?”
He grabbed her tunic, shoving his hands into the wide pockets. When he came up empty, the humor and façade disappeared.
“Worthless,” he growled. His eyes flicked to Ada. “Feeling brave, are we?”
The children tensed, but before the master could raise a hand to strike them, his attention was yanked away by beating hooves coming up the path.
He threw his arms wide as he stood, welcoming the visitors with smiles and laughter.
“Lord Marx, you honor us!”
A tall man sitting high on his horse raised a hand. He was slender and elegant, with eyes like a hawk. Behind him, five more horsemen trotted to a stop. When he spoke, his words made strange sounds, and Eris thought they didn’t fit well in his mouth.
“I’ve no time for your pleasantries, Crane. Word has reached me that a caravan crossed along the border not long ago. What did you see of it?”
Crane bowed so low, his belly nearly brushed the dirt. “You honor me again with your trust and confidence. But I must confess…I know nothing.”
Lord Marx rolled his eyes. Ada slowly pulled Eris toward the stables.
“If you hear anything over the next days, send word to me immediately.”
“I will do as much, sir, you can be sure. Trust me to seek out the truth. I won’t rest until it’s done.”
The horsemen exchanged annoyed glances.
As Eris reached the weather-worn stables, she turned back to look, catching the eyes of Lord Marx. His gaze softened at the connection, and a gentle fluttering touched her cheek, like the wings of a butterfly against her skin. The sensation drew her in, slowing her steps as Ada pulled harder for her to follow.
Until a prickling pain crept across her palms, and a tremor of fear rippled her tiny frame.
“You should have run,” Ada whispered.
The girls sat together on a box, nestled in the dark corner of a stable, sharing the space with a massive, gray mare.
“They might have taken you with them. Given you a home with someone kind.”
Eris had told Ada about Etan and about the king. Her thoughts drifted to the yellow flower Etan had given her. It lay on the moss now, somewhere dying in the woods.
“You’re my friend,” her sweet voice answered, “and who would look after my mother?”
The mare pushed her nose toward Eris, and the girl giggled, patting its muzzle.
Ada drew back, astonished, but Eris didn’t understand her reaction. Her few years hadn’t taught her to choose where love was given. She still believed it was meant for all.
Shouting reached their ears, barked orders. The children slid from the box, and stable muck pressed between their toes.
Ada lifted a foot, cringing when the dark mud oozed off in clumps. “Winter’s a long way away.”
Eris lit up. She’d get new boots in the winter. Maybe sooner if the weather turned cold. “I want black ones.”
Ada scoffed, angling around the mare and brushing long clumps of hair from her sweaty face. “We don’t get to choose. You know that.”
But Eris wasn’t listening now. She was thinking of the master’s daughter—of her shining boots with the buckles. Maybe…if she was good and didn’t run off…they’d give her some of those.
Ada stayed close to Eris throughout the evening. The little child need only turn to catch sight of Ada’s thin form, somewhere nearby, completing her duties with her gaze always flicking to hers. She never felt afraid with Ada. She knew she would always protect her.
When the sun fell away and the sky turned murky gray, Ada walked Eris to her hut. Her mother hadn’t arrived yet, and Ada had no parents to rush home to.
“Let’s get you ready for bed,” Ada said in the same nurturing tone she used every night.
Eris sat on the dirty, aged wood floor, legs curled. Ada knelt before her, using a wet cloth to wipe sweat from Eris’s face. Eris stared up at Ada’s eyes, waiting for her composure to break, forcing back the laugh she felt bubbling in her chest. Ada avoided the gaze.
“Stay in your bed tonight,” she told Eris. “No more wandering. It isn’t safe.”
Eris grinned. “I won’t.”
Ada pulled a twig from the small one’s hair. “I’m serious, Eris. What you did was dangerous. And the master won’t like you running off again.”
Eris nodded, still gazing up. Still waiting. “Okay.”
Finally, Ada’s eyes shifted to hers, and Eris felt a rush of joy. Ada’s lips twitched. And the two girls burst into giggles.
Eris loved this routine. This nightly silliness. The older girl pushed gently on Eris’s nose.
“Remember to smile.”
“I will, Ada. I promise.”
Later that night, as she lay alone on the splintered floor of her hut, Eris watched the stars twinkling overhead through a hole in the roof. As she drifted, blinking harder as the minutes passed, the corners of her lips curled upward—just the way Ada had taught her. Smiling kept away bad dreams. Tonight, she would dream of boots.
The door of the hut slammed open, startling Eris from sleep. Across the small space, her mother gasped, sitting up. A man stood silhouetted against the moonlight. Only black. Shadow.
Breathless, he said, “They’re burning the village.”
He disappeared from the doorway, and Eris heard the door of the next hut bursting open, and the same words spoken, but louder…growing in urgency.
Brona threw off a thin blanket and rushed to the door. Grabbing the frame, she leaned her head out to see. Eris curled tighter, watching her mother and waiting for instructions.
The woman’s head turned back to her daughter, and Eris felt her weighty gaze, though she couldn’t see her eyes. The young child lifted onto an elbow, ready to do whatever her mother said. A long moment passed, with screams echoing in the distance. Then Brona turned away…and ran.
Eris froze, eyes round. The room filled with her heartbeat. Minutes passed this way, and with each one, noises grew louder outside.
Men shouting and piercing screams. Horses neighing and the pounding of hooves. Smoke drifted in on the cool air, stinging her nose.
The girl stared at the doorway, trembling, waiting for her mother to return. Perhaps something had happened, and she couldn’t get back. Maybe her mother needed help, or Eris had been meant to follow.
She slowly rose, tiptoeing to the threshold. With a deep swallow, the young child moved to exit. Two figures barreled through the doorway, knocking Eris into a corner, scraping her arm across splintered wood. A man and woman hid behind the doorframe, taking turns leaning out to see. Their breaths came fast.
“They’re Omarian,” the man snarled. “I’m sure of it.”
The woman shuddered. “This’ll mean war when Dreonine hears of it.”
“You put too much faith in our king.”
“And you don’t put any,” she shot back.
The man took his turn peeking into the dark, then returned, whispering, “Well if I’m allowed to be honest—”
“Shhh! You’re not allowed. You’ll get us killed by our own.”
“Better that than spend the whole of my life afraid of what he’ll do next. That man’s a lunatic, and you know it!”
The woman clapped a hand over his mouth. “Have you lost your mind?”
With a shove on her arm, he pushed free. Eris curled deeper into the dark.
“You know why they’ve come,” said the man grimly. “And I dare say we deserve it.”
Fear festered in Eris’s chest as her thoughts flicked to Ada.
From the woman near the door came a whisper of dread. “He’ll send the lords.”
In an equally hushed tone, hemmed in reverence, the man replied, “Better that it’s aimed at someone else this time.”
The two darted away.
Eris gripped the front of her tunic, inching again toward the opening. As she stepped into the wide-open night,
the young girl trembled at the size of the world; at the black, smoky sky and the darkness of the woods; at the largeness of people and the heat of violent fires. Night transformed the earth, and the girl felt tiny. And afraid.
Behind her, a horse reared, his hooves stamping the ground near her feet. Eris fell, landing on mounds of dirt. She caught the angry eyes of the rider for only a moment before he rode on, touching his torch to another rooftop. Another hut.
Her hut.
“Ada!” she shrieked, searching in panic for her friend. Stumbling to her feet, Eris ran toward the stables, and from the smoke came Ada, sprinting across the yard. She grabbed Eris by the hand and pulled her toward the horses. “Come on!”
Smoke poured in from fires raging up the outer beams. The children coughed, stumbling in the dark toward the frightened gray mare.
“Get up!”
Ada lifted Eris, helping her scramble onto the horse’s bare back. The beast’s muscles rippled as the bigger girl settled behind her. With coaxing and shifting, Ada managed to get the horse out of her stall. Flames growled overhead, eating away at the roof. Eris shrieked, gripping the mare’s thick mane.
Ada heeled the horse’s sides. “Go! We have to go now!”
Arrows sliced the outside air, and screams raised bumps on Eris’s skin. She’d never felt this kind of fear before. Never lost her mother for so long.
The stables collapsed in a rage of flames, and the horse bolted, flying toward the trees. The children bent forward, grasping thick hair to keep from falling.
They passed the tree line, entering the gaping dark of the woods, and Eris sensed a gasp…and cool air at her back. She cried out for her friend, but there was no answer.
On and on the horse ran, crashing down a winding path, over creeks and beneath jutting branches. Eris fell forward, grasping the creature’s neck and mane. Hiding her eyes from what lurked in the darkness.
In time, the sounds changed. Screams faded to rustling leaves and insect songs. The horse slowed, trotting on beneath a thick, green canopy. Eris clung tight to the animal, never lifting her head, never looking.
They wandered on over a rocky trail, and the sway lulled Eris. She never felt when the horse stopped for a drink. Never once heard a wolf’s howl or the frogs in passing creeks. Trauma led to sleep, deep and unyielding.
“What’s this?”
The words came softly, a murmur. Eris slowly opened her eyes to a low burning fire and an old woman’s face hovering near.
“What’s this gift you’ve brought us?”
The horse answered in a soft puff of breath. The woman took hold of Eris, drawing her off the animal’s warm back and into her arms. The child stared at the mare as the distance between them stretched. Her heart cried out; Ada was gone. Tears filled the child’s eyes. Would she ever see her mother again?
“Don’t be frightened,” whispered the woman. “I’ll fix a place for you to rest. You’ll be safe here.”
Eris was set by a dying fire, and the woman rushed to meet a man exiting the largest tent.
She stared at the flames, remembering the fires that burned her village. The torch that lit her hut. Feeling more grief than a child should bear.
Voices drifted from yards away.
“She arrived alone. No saddle was fixed.” The woman’s voice dropped to a whisper. “...a beautiful mare.”
A tired, male voice answered. “Make room in your tent tonight. I’ll tie up the horse. We’ll examine her in the morning.”
The crackling fire coaxed Eris into trust…calmness. After all she’d experienced and the terror of the night woods, the little girl found comfort in their quiet tones.
Her breaths stuttered, still snagging on sadness, but weariness was stronger. Her eyelids fell.
CHAPTER ONE
ETAN
Thirteen years later...
The stars refused to shine, and in their absence, the dead lingered.
Soldiers sat hunched over dying embers, their sun-scorched faces glowing red in the crackling light. Eyes shifted at the grind of my steps as I walked a winding path between the tents. But their deep-throated murmurs continued without end, prayers rolling over swollen lips, tumbling past chipped, broken teeth. They gripped idly at wounds, blood-caked knuckles curling over patched up gashes. Little did we rest that night.
As I moved from shadow to shadow, in and out of the moon’s pale glow, a stone sat heavy in my stomach. I tried to block out the sounds of grief. I was still young, and I’d not yet learned the wisdom in embracing sorrow. In allowing it space to breathe. My fists clenched to the point of pain.
We had come to aid a cluster of villages along the border at Gregthain, to drive Sithian traffickers back into their own land. We rode only as a band of two hundred warriors. It wasn’t meant to be an all-out war, only defense of the people living on the outskirts. A routine ride, common enough since the uptick in attacks throughout the year.
But the enemy was prepared, hordes waiting on the mountain and in the forest. Nearly five hundred in number. The sickening, low blast of their war horns resonated in my skull long after the battle was done. It was a sound I’d never heard in that first year, a deep, bone-chilling noise rising as from the depths beneath. Far more menacing than the painted bands we were accustomed to running out of our land. These soldiers had come for blood.
At last, the king’s tent came into view. Wider than the others. Taller. Blue banners decorated the canvas, with torchlight at the front. Knights flanked the entrance, stony eyes glowing in the flicker of fire. I stopped beneath a nearby tent’s looming shade, halted by a memory: my father’s words the night of the king’s gift.
“You were meant to protect. Since you were a boy, I always knew there was more to you than service.”
“If that’s so,” I replied, “it’s only because of your example. You are as much a warrior as any man who bears a sword. The king knows it. Why was this honor not given to you?”
“It’s enough that he knows”, said my father. “Not every man is meant for glory.” He held me at arm’s length, pride drawing tears to his eyes. “But you, Etan, are a crown upon my head. Your rise honors me more than my own could ever do. Your mother...she would be proud.”
The absence of his strong grip dropped my shoulders. I shuddered in a chill rising from the valley. Would he say such things if he could see me now? Would my mother be proud of my actions? I drew in a long breath through my nose, and it churned in my chest. Aching. My fingers found the chain at my neck, where it disappeared beneath my tunic, hiding the medallion of a budding steel rose. My one trinket that once belonged to my mother. Her voice whispered through my thoughts, a memory.
“Take care, little bear, that ambition does not blind you.”
My gaze shifted to the guarded tent.
As a child, I never feared the king. He’d been good to my father, always treating him fairly and revering him more as a friend than a servant. But this night, I trembled at the thought of standing in his presence. The events of the day replayed in my thoughts, going over every condemning detail.
A raging battlefield. The clash of steel against steel, and the guttural screams of men when blade hit flesh. High mountain peaks looming to the west, and a rising sun cresting in the east, illuminating the night’s carnage. Glowing soft over blood and bone.
The king fought in our midst, caked in sweat and mud, the glint of his swinging blade blinding as the sun slipped over the horizon. The morning mist rose around him as a shroud, tendrils hooking to drag him under. But he would not fall.
I was ordered to lead a few wounded away from the battlefield. We’d nearly reached the crest, all four surviving the arduous climb up a steep slope, when I looked back. My gaze fell on dozens of Sithians pressing in on the king, laying waste to the soldiers gathered to protect him. Among them, a single enemy foot soldier weaved his way through the chaos. Untouched. Unseen by those surrounding. He made for the king, and it wasn’t malice he wore, but a fierce determination.
Full acceptance of the path laid at his feet. A bringer of death.
That night, as I stood gazing at the king’s tent beneath an ink-dark sky, towering and sturdy in my youth, I struggled to weigh the worth of one life against the next. Wrestled to find peace in the choice I had made. Had I not left the wounded, the king would surely be dead. But the climb stole the last of their strength, and an ambush at the top took their lives.
Would I have been enough to save them? Or would my body have joined the earth with theirs, useless now against the cold ground?
I straightened my spine, feigning confidence where I felt none. Sir Belin opened the tent at my approach, sporting a nasty gash across the bridge of his nose, disappearing into the thick gray of his beard. The old knight’s scowl raised the hairs on my neck. His nephew had been among those I left on the hill. I hadn’t known it then, only later, when his cry split the cold, still air.
I avoided his gaze and bowed to enter.
The king stood in the glow of candlelight, his back turned, dressed down in a simple untucked tunic and pants. No robe. No crown or armor. This was the man I’d grown up knowing, humble in sovereignty and might. He was unharmed, as far as I could see, apart from the fatigue and aching muscles we all felt. His strong arms crossed over his chest, one hand raised to his mouth, slowly stroking at a short, brown beard.
Traveling in the king’s company since childhood often blurred the lines of decorum. But as we stood quiet in the wake of the day’s horror, far off moaning reaching our ears within, death crushed my courage. Guilt sent my knees to the ground.
“I owe you a great debt,” murmured the king. My chest caved, bending me forward. His words served only to shame me. “It’s a debt I owe to many,” he continued softly, “but none as young as yourself. Your father will be proud.”
His tone hinted of truth. Of honesty and affection. He was never wasteful with praise, but to accept it would be wrong.
“I’m sorry, master.”
His turn upset the nearest flames, and his heavy gaze fell on me. I kept mine low.
Songs in the Night: Book One Page 2