“If our companions are any indication, the war will remain both within and outwith and we'll spend the rest of our lives fighting it.”
“Curse of the outcast,” Iefyr said as he set several flat stones next to the fire. He ducked under the pine boughs, then sat next to me and leaned over his knees to extend his hands toward the fire. “Let those rocks warm up a bit and they'll help loosen up your joints. Not too long, though. Don't want to burn yourself.”
“Where's everyone else?” I asked.
“Ragan's flaying a groundhog. Rose and Nador are off hunting because one groundhog isn't going to feed us all.” Iefyr nodded at Shan, then cocked his head toward Marita. “I take it you gave him the poppy draught?”
Marita rubbed her nose. “Yes.”
“Good. His behavior was becoming . . . strange. Don't give it to him every night or he won't be able to sleep without it. Every other night at the most, but safer at once or twice a week, and only one drop.” Iefyr laid back on the moss and stared up into the branches of the weeping pine. His red hair and blue eyes shimmered in the firelight and for a moment he appeared far more elven than orcan. “I know it's tempting, especially when he starts wandering around in the dark mumbling to himself, but take my word for it. I won't touch the stuff anymore and won't carry it in my med kit. I took it myself for years, and the pain and insomnia from breaking the dependency were worse than the pain and insomnia I took it for in the first place. Weeks of screaming muscles and shaking, sweating, miserable nights. And that was after I took too much and nearly didn't wake up. Don't do that to him. No one deserves that kind of torture.”
“I'm not going to addict him or overdose him. I only wanted to give him a reprieve,” Marita said, a defensive note in her voice.
“Keep the balance, Mar. We're all walking so close to the edge that the slightest breeze could capsize us. We're the type that falls hard and far, so let's not tempt that crumbling cliff too much.”
“I'm not going to let Shan fall. Neither will he.” Marita swept her hand toward me. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “If one of us falls the others will be reaching over the cliff to either save the fallen or be dragged down into the depths to join them. I'd risk falling to catch you too, Iefyr. Or Ragan or Rose or Nador. You know that. We rise or we fall, and we do it together.”
“Outcasts need to stick together,” I said. My stomach grumbled. I hoped Rose and Nador's hunt produced something more than a single groundhog to be shared among seven. Maybe Serida could go catch something, but I didn't trust her to share.
“You don't know anything about being an outcast, not yet,” Iefyr said with a snort. “You're a human kid from moderate privilege. Maybe you were teased, maybe you were called bastard, but you were not reviled on sight. You've never had someone take one look at you and decide you're an abomination. Maybe you never will, and I envy you for that. That change in your eyes, though, so soon after bonding with your dragon . . . that makes me think you're heading toward a similar fate as the rest of us. You're not going to look human anymore and you won't be able to hide it. Strangers will start to stare at you like you're some sort of monster. It's going to hurt, Tessen, going to hurt a lot. You'll probably withdraw for a while and pretend to get used to it, but truth is you never acclimate to the stares and the insults. They'll scorch you around your edges and leave you wishing you felt nothing, but instead you feel everything.”
“You really think I'm going to change that much? That I won't look human anymore?” I asked. My throat was parched and raw, and the campfire smoke drifting toward me was only making it worse.
Iefyr exchanged an uneasy glance with Marita before returning his attention to me. “You looked entirely human the day I met you. Hasn't been that long, but you've changed. It's more than your eyes. I . . . I can't really explain it. You're different.”
Marita smiled. She held her hand toward the fire, shifting its flames to shades of green. “Dragon aura, dragon eyes. You soul was always a dragon, even before you bound yourself to one. Sleeping dragon, resting dragon, now you're fighting to remain asleep but you're waking. You're starting to see the world through different eyes and you realize how cruel it truly is. That should embolden you, not discourage you. If you recognize problems, you can begin to fix them.”
A chill crept across my back as I watched the steady rise and fall of the blankets cocooning Shan's chest. I adjusted Serida's weight to take some pressure off the scar on my lower ribs. I inhaled the scents of pine and fresh mud and said, “I don't know how to fix this . . . fix him. I don't recognize anything about him anymore. This is so much more than getting older and growing apart. It's like he was shattered and then put back together all wrong. I know he'll never go back to being the old Shan, but I want to help him find some sort of stability and contentment and I can't figure out how.”
Marita chewed her lip and stared into the flames. They shifted to intertwined columns of violet and green for just an instant before settling into natural reds and yellows. “We hold onto his heart and don't let go, even when the cyclone tries to rip it away. He knows we're trying to help him, knows that we love him. This is all so new to him and even though he's hurting, we need to wait for him to figure it out.”
“I hope he figures it out soon.” Iefyr retrieved the flat stones from the edge of the fire. He set one next to each of my hips, then pressed a third against the small of his own back. He lowered his gaze, sniffled, and whispered, “Sooner the better. He frightens me.”
“He's odd, but he's harmless,” I said. The soothing heat permeated my muscles, and then the bones themselves. Wonderful, blissful heat, such a simple comfort. I didn't know why we hadn't tried this trick sooner.
Iefyr's chin snapped to level and his eyebrows knit as he stared at me. “No, no he certainly is not.”
Marita's stare was nearly identical to Iefyr's. “No warlock is harmless, and Nightshadow warlocks are more dangerous than most. So much innate power, so much smoldering darkness. He has the potential to raise the whole of Bacra to shining glory, or to utterly devastate it. The dragonbind only amplifies the gifts he already had. Don't underestimate him. He's anything but harmless.”
I didn't want to believe my brother was a threat to Bacra, but I knew that was the bias of my own naivety. We had entered dark days, and we'd both lost ourselves. I wanted to cling to the comforts of the past, but the tidal wave of the present was crushing us beneath infinite depths. We could surrender and drown or we could fight for the surface, but we had to do it together. Neither of us possessed a single memory where the other didn't exist. He was one of the few remaining constants in my life, linking past to present to future, and I was his.
“We've got grouse!” Nador's chirping voice reached beneath the pine boughs and jerked me from my introspective silence.
“Dress those bastards and let's get 'em cooking,” Ragan said. He sat next to Marita and arranged his skewered groundhog over the flames. “Don't think I don't see that disgust on your face, Marita. Groundhog's not the worst thing you could eat, not in the least. Tastes kinda like rabbit. Save your disgust for when we're stuck eating muskrat or seagull. That's some nasty shit.”
“Nothing wrong with groundhog. Seagull is terrible,” Iefyr said, his lips twisting into a scowl.
Ragan nodded. “See? Orcs don't even like seagull.”
“Orcs? Elves are the ones who eat the weird shit. Orc palates are refined, and their cuisine is complex and wonderful, but elves eat whatever the aristocrats consider fashionable, no matter how disgusting.”
“Daelis has a taste for fermented fish. It smells horrible. Mom makes him eat it outside when he brings it home,” I said with a shudder. That was one smell that I gagged simply at the memory of.
Serida's body relaxed and her head slid down my back. I didn't know how I was going to manage eating while she was asleep in my arms, but I didn't want to risk waking her by trying to move her.
“See? Elves are disgusting.” Iefyr laughed. His eyes f
ollowed Nador and Rose as they paced back and forth between the horses and the fire, unloading cooking supplies and bedding. The grouse meat was already in a pot, ready to be simmered into stew.
“Not all of us,” Marita mumbled.
“You're a sensible elf. I like that about you.” Iefyr grinned and shifted closer to me so Nador could sit down.
“No, you like me because I remind you of your mother.”
“That, too.”
Rose added a handful of small onions to the stew pot, then cleared her throat. “There's a little creek just down the hill. I suggest everyone wash up first thing in the morning, then we need to keep moving. I don't trust those warring Fae to keep their bloodlust to themselves, so the more distance we can make the better.”
“Do you think the Mala Basin Fae will be any more peaceful?” Ragan asked.
Rose bent down to kiss the top of his head. “Only on the outside. I'm worried about how they'll react to you. You should take to keeping your face covered now. It's dangerous for you here, far more for you than for the rest of us.”
“I know. I'll be careful.” He reached up to squeeze Rose's hand. Addressing the rest of us, he said, “Eat, sleep, wash away the filth, and onward.”
Chapter 28
The pain lessened on the second day, and again on the third, but my hunger was insatiable, my fatigue unrelenting. There was never enough to eat or enough hours in the night for a satisfying sleep.
For two days we rode through a damp, dense forest of anemic pines and twisted black birches. Thick clusters of ferns rose from moss carpets and ravens cawed from the branches as mice and chipmunks scurried underfoot. Thunder and lightning shook the distance, but we were never assaulted by more than a light mist and a cool breeze. The heavy scent of pine clung to my clothes and I could smell it on myself under the blankets at night, but that smell was much preferable to the overwhelming stench of sickness that had adhered itself to my skin prior to the much-welcomed bath in the frigid creek near our earlier campsite.
We saw no Fae or signs of civilization aside from the weed-choked road we found on the second day and followed through the next. The solitude was welcome. There were no scowling Foxfae or Wolverfae threatening us with their silent and impatient presence.
I alternating riding with Shan, Marita, and Iefyr until near the end of the third day, when I finally felt comfortable and awake enough to try riding without their support. They still weren't willing to let me ride alone, so I found myself sandwiched between Nador and Serida on Saragon's back. The halfling chewed wild mint leaves and rambled about the benefits of different sulfur and oil combinations for incendiary weapons. I didn't want to be rude, but I couldn't focus enough to feign interest, so I stared at the gentle swish of her silver ponytail and murmured 'that's fascinating' when she paused to take a breath.
“...I mean, you can use animal fat or even eggs yolks or manure instead, but that just feels uncouth, doesn't it? Fat's a decent accelerant, though, just mix it up with some straw and light it up. That's what the elves did when they sieged Easttower a couple centuries back. Pig lard and flax. Personally, I prefer quicklime if you need to incapacitate your enemies. Reacts with water, blinds the bastards. Gotta be careful with it, though, especially if there's any wind. Don't want to blind and burn yourself while the enemy gets in a good laugh.” Nador drew a deep breath and sighed. “Never seen it in action, only in theory. Maybe someday...”
“Well, as interesting as it might be, I do hope you never have cause to use quicklime in battle,” I said. I reached back to pet Serida. I shuddered to think that Nador wanted to see her theoretical weapons in action. Her latent bloodlust was discomforting.
“I don't want go to into battle, I just want to see how they work in practice.” Nador sighed again and leaned against me. “I bet your skills would be useful in weaponmaking. Wouldn't that be more interesting than cutlery and jewelry?”
“Silver isn't a weapon. If I wanted to make weapons I would have gone into blacksmithing. I prefer my life to be calmer and without the pounding headache.”
“You're done with that calm life malarkey, kid. I bet silver alloy could produce a viable weapon. Copper additive, maybe. Anyway, I'm not talking about swords, more like explosives casings.”
“That's not something I've considered,” I said. I wasn't sure if the air was growing heavier or if my fatigue was worsening.
Nador stretched her arms over her head, nearly striking me in the face. “Think about it sometime. I mean not right now since we've got enough other shit to deal with, but maybe when you get back home. We could come up with some amazing devices together. Silver's essential to alchemy, so I know a thing or two. Not as much as you, certainly, but enough for collaboration.”
“All right, I'll think about it later.” I had no intention of helping Nador create new weapons. If I made it back to Jadeshire, I was going to retreat back into smithing teapots and signet rings. The only blood that was acceptable as a result of my creations was an occasional pricked fingertip from a brooch or a bruised shin from knocking a sauce bowl off a table.
“You're a smart kid. You'll create great things if you're properly motivated,” Nador said.
“Thank you.” I couldn't think of any other response. Nador's idea of great things was clearly different from my own. Quiet things, sensible things, aesthetic things, not blow-up-your-enemies-and-watch-them-burn things.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit. Sarding shit.” Ragan's voice backtracked down the trail to repeatedly slap our faces.
Saragon's pace slowed as the ground became softer.
“What's he going on about?” Rose said from somewhere behind me.
“No idea,” I mumbled. The air smelled different here. Earthier, danker. Ragan came into view, and so did the cause of his cursing.
We were at the edge of a bog. Sedges and floating moss stretched out before us in an expanse of stagnant water. The road continued into the swamp, bordered by cattails and supplemented by rotting stone bridges. Waist-high black and orange mushrooms sprouted beneath twisted weeping willows. We weren't anywhere near where we were supposed to be.
“Try to get ahead, only to fail and fall and fail again,” Shan said as he dismounted near Ragan, who was already on his feet and pacing along the edge of the stinking peat.
“Damn these clouds and this gods-damned realm.” Ragan spat into the green-tinged water. “Damn it, damn it, shit and damn it. We went the wrong way. Wrong road, wrong sarding way. This doesn't look like no sarding gods-damned Crystal Forest, does it, Shannon?”
“Don't call me Shannon.” Shan scowled and watched Nador jump down from my horse. “Swamp crystals, perhaps, Ragan? We were all following you, so it's your fault that we're lost. The mushrooms are making me queasy. Excuse me while I go vomit.” He ducked behind a tree and retched.
Ragan paced one more strip along the bog before coming to help me off Saragon. “We're not lost. I know where we are now. Problem is, we're not where we wanted to be. Too far west. Need to find a way east. Way, way east.”
“Drowning Morass,” Rose said. She stood in the center of the road and stared into the distance. Tiny lights and tendril-like vapors rose from the water as the sun began to set somewhere far beyond the thick clouds. “We can't go in there. I've heard stories about the Fae who live in the Morass. Brutal, reptilian, cannibalistic. Best not tempt them with our presence. Ragan, get out your maps. We've got work to do.”
I slapped at a mosquito. “Since we're already in the wrong place, could we maybe skip by the Mala Basin and go straight to Anthora? Seems like that might be a little safer.”
Rose squinted and rubbed the side of her nose. “Mala is on the way to Anthora, can't avoid it. We need to get east and everything lies to the east. As for safer, we won't be any safer in Mala than here, or any safer in Anthora than in Mala. Faelands or Bacra proper, we're going to be in danger. That's the nature of this . . . this . . . journey.”
“I really shouldn't have taken those
eggs,” Shan said. He spun around twice on his heels and smiled at Marita as she dismounted. “Or maybe I should have. Maybe danger causes everything to fall into place. Fate not be damned, but warmly welcomed.” He reached toward Marita, who took his hand and returned his smile with uncertainty. “Care to join me for an evening at the edge of this vile swamp? Maybe Tessen will sing for us since he's feeling better. He has quite a lovely voice.”
“I'm not going to sing, asshole,” I said.
Lumin tackled Serida and pinned her to the peat. She snapped her jaws at him, but he refused to release his hold until she nipped his shoulder with her newly-cut teeth. Like other young animals, their wrestling matches were not out of aggression, but instead for fun and practice.
“That's a shame,” Marita said. She embraced Shan and gently rocked him side to side. “I'd love to hear you sing sometime, Tessen. If not tonight, then sometime soon.”
“Maybe.” I scooped up Serida and cradled her against my chest. “Come on, dragon. I need to walk. Let's scout out a perimeter while we still have light.”
“Take your sword with you. Stay alert and within shouting distance,” Ragan said, not looking up from his map collection.
“I'm not a fool, Ragan.”
“I know you're not. I'm only being–”
“Protective. Paternal. I know. I understand.” I brushed against his shoulder as I passed him.
He glanced up for an instant to give me a reflexive smile. “Good. Don't be long. We're gonna roast those ducks Iefyr shot earlier.”
“I collected fiddleheads and mushrooms, so we can sauté those up,” Rose said. She ran her fingers across the back of Ragan's hand and then landed them on the incomplete map. “There. We should be right about here. We need to head due east, but we might need to backtrack south first. We should see mountains in a couple days, and if we want to avoid getting lost in the highlands, we need to stay in the center of the vale until this forest transitions into the Crystal Forest. The plateau drops at the edge of the Crystal Forest, and opens into the Mala Basin. Long, deep, temperate valley shaped like a Y, and the passes east of the Fae capital Belise will get us on the road to Anthora.”
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