“Why?”
“Humor me.” He rubbed a hand over the top of his head—another sign of frustration. “We need supplies, Gin. We don’t know what plants are edible here, or if there are animals that we can hunt for food. We certainly didn’t get anything from the other prisoners.”
She scanned the landscape ahead of them and soon let out a whoop as she spotted a chimney with smoke curling out the top. “Look! Over there!” She pointed, and Sath followed the direction of her arm until he also saw the smoking chimney. She started walking quickly toward the house, with Sath following along behind her.
“I just hope that smoke isn’t because they are cooking the last visitors they had,” he muttered. Before long, they reached the house and found it to be more of an inn than a house. Sath’s mouth was set in a thin line—he was still convinced that it was a trap, and it reminded him of the inn where he met Raedea so long ago. Long before he met Gin, when he was barely free of being the Bane of the Forest. She had been his first friend and moral compass. To think that she had been searching for her twin brother, Dorlagar, who did such unspeakable things to Gin...“I hope you found your peace—and your worthless brother, Rae,” he whispered as Gin opened the front door and walked inside.
The first room they entered was an ample gathering space, with wooden tables set at odd angles all over it. Similar wooden chairs were pulled up to the tables, and none of them seemed to be inhabited. “Not late enough yet, I suppose,” Gin whispered to him. Sath shook his head. Something was not right, but he couldn’t put a point to it. The fur on the back of his neck stood on end as he followed Gin to the bar where a young man was wiping it down.
“Can I help you, miss?” he said, and when he looked up at Gin, she nearly jumped backward. He was also dragonkind, like Ysil and the princess, but his inherited dragon traits were subtle at best—deep amber eyes and black hair and scales which only framed his face—there were none on his arms. Those seemed to be entirely human, and his entire demeanor so reminded Gin of Dorlagar that she gripped a nearby chair for balance.
“Aye, we require some food, but…”
“Of course. Go sit down, I’ll make you up something. We have a nice vegetable stew and some fresh bread. Two mugs of ale to go with it, I suppose?”
“I hate to impose further, sir, but do you have a room we could rent just for the night to get ourselves sorted out? We don’t have a lot of money, but -”
“One of these days, I’m going to have a word with the Mother Dragon about all this charity work I do.” He reached back behind him to a pegboard laden with keys, retrieved some, and then turned back to Gin as a wry grin spread across his face.. “Here. First door on the right at the top of the stairs. Get yourself settled and then come back down for your food.” He was looking at Sath with a mix of uncertainty and fear, so Gin smiled and thanked him, and then she and Sath hurried up the stairs.
They entered the room, and Sath locked the door behind them. It was small, with one bed and a small hearth. Nothing else. Hardly the palace at Qatu’anari. “I don’t know about you, but this is the weirdest adventure you and I have ever been on, bar none.” Sath sat down on the floor near the small hearth. “I don’t suppose you could…” Gin nodded and sent a spark from her fingertips to the wood and kindling in the fireplace, and it caught almost immediately. She looked at her hands and smiled, inwardly relieved that it worked.
Soon, it was a roaring fire, and Sath was dosing in front of it, so Gin snuck out to get the food without disturbing him. She smiled happily as she walked down the corridor and down the stairs they had come up earlier. Her nose told her that she was headed for the kitchen, and she soon entered a room with brick walls and all sorts of food cooking on grills and over open fires. A young human woman was tending to a large pot of something that smelled like vegetable soup. Gin walked over to her.
“Pardon me, miss,” she said, taking a step back when the young woman jumped. “I’m sorry to startle you, but I was just wondering if I could get some food? The innkeeper said -”
“Of course you can, love,” the young woman said. “Give me just a few moments, bread’s almost done in the oven. You’re the one with the Qatu, aren’t you? Can’t have it getting hungry and thinking that you’re a wood elf snack now, can we?” Gin grimaced, both at the image and the irony. She found a stool in the corner of the kitchen and sat down. The young woman turned to look at her, and her face fell. “Oh, no, my lady, you can’t sit in here, not with the likes of me, there is a very comfortable room across the hall with proper tables.” She scurried over and nearly pushed Gin off the stool and onto her feet. “Let me show you.”
“It’s really no trouble,” Gin began to protest but soon found herself swept off her feet and shuffled across the hall into a velvet cushioned chair. The woman from the kitchen was gone before Gin could even ask her name, so she settled into the chair, enjoying the feel of the velvet. It reminded her of the cushions on the floor in Sath’s chambers in Qatu’anari. The walls seemed to be hung with the same green velvet, and Gin got up to carefully touch them and see if they were as soft as the chairs. They were, and it was all she could do not to lean up against them for a nap—so she indulged herself for a moment, not realizing how tired she was until—
“My…lady?” a male voice said, interrupting her nap. Gin came around immediately and turned to find the dragonkind male that had spoken to them earlier, now staring at her intently. “Are you all right? I thought you had passed out cold against the wall there,” he said.
“Yes, thank you, I am merely tired from my journey, and the heat and wonderful smells from the kitchen lulled me to sleep,” she said, blushing to the roots of her hair. The man reminded Gin of…no, she wouldn’t let Dorlagar enter her mind. One evil human didn’t mean they all were, now did it? She extended a hand to him in greeting. “Please, call me Gin…I find My Lady a bit above me.”
He took her hand, and the electric shock she felt at his touch gave her goosebumps. His eyes met hers and widened—clearly, he felt it too. “You are the Nature Walker, are you not—nothing is above you, from what I understand. I am Josiah Dawnshadow, at your service.” Gin yanked her hand away from him as he brought it to his lips and he frowned. “I apologize, is that not how your kind greet each other?”
“What did you say your name was?” Gin was shaking from head to toe. “Josiah, what?”
“Dawnshadow,” Josiah replied. “I know it is an odd name, but it is the only one I have.” He chuckled, and Gin tried to share in the laughter but found hers sounded hollow even to her. “Have I said something wrong?” he asked. “You are looking at me as I have. . .”
“No, no, of course not,” Gin said, forcing her face into a pleasant mask and willing her body to stop trembling. “I am sorry, Josiah, but I have had a long journey, and I fear I am not quite myself. Tell me, are you from here—from J’yr Va’al?”
“Oh, no,” Josiah replied. “I am from M’aanyr—well, my mother was born just south of there, but my father was from the Old World, a place called Arend, have you ever been there?” Gin could barely keep herself together, so she nodded. It could not be a coincidence that Raedea and Dorlagar were from Arend, and shared the same surname. “I have heard that Arend is a beautiful city, but I fear I may never see it. Once you arrive here on M’aanyr, it is—difficult to leave, it would seem. Father never went back home.”
Gin studied him. Clearly, he was a relative of Dorlagar’s. Josiah had the same sharp nose, the same stern brow, and the same broad smile as the dark knight. Still, his amber eyes danced with happiness at the memory as he talked about how his father had come to M’aanyr with his cousins to try to track down the Mother Dragon after the Forest War. Tears pricked the backs of her eyelids as she wondered if this was what Dorlagar was like before his sister Raedea died and left him a shell of a man. She closed her mind to Sath other than to let him know she was alive, fearing his reaction if he misunderstood the interaction with this man.
“My la
dy! Your food is ready!” the woman called from the kitchen.
“Ah, yes, you travel with the Qatu,” Josiah said. “We are all…curious about your companion, is all. None of us have ever seen a Qatu, at least not a live one.”
“Nor are you likely to again,” Gin said curtly. This human was a bit too interested in Sath and potentially her, and she had to get away from the guilt—and memories—he called up in her of Dorlagar. “Sathlir is – well, Qatu are not adventurous, as a rule. None of his people are likely to journey this far from home. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to see about our food. It was a pleasure to meet you, Josiah,” she said, again extending her hand. He took it and squeezed her fingers tightly as he brought her hand to meet his lips.
“Not going to let you get away that easily, Gin,” he said, looking up at her through the fringe of hair that had escaped the leather thong at the nape of his neck. His eyes cut through her, burning into her soul and releasing another crushing wave of guilt at her part in Dorlagar’s death. “I hope to see you around the inn before we both go our separate ways.”
Gin nodded politely and retrieved her hand from his, and then dashed to the kitchen where the young woman was waiting with a pack of food, wrapped in cream-colored paper and tied up with a bit of twine. “That’s for the road, love,” she said and then handed Gin another pack that was still quite warm. “That’s for now. I hope you enjoy it.” The food smelled so good that Gin almost kissed the woman for giving it to her. She smiled broadly, thanked the woman, and then headed back to the room she shared with Sath. Something was very wrong here—not only was the Mother Dragon apparently repopulating this side of the world with dragons and dragonkind, but a member of Dorlagar’s family turns up in the very inn where they stop? That was no coincidence. This had to be another trap like the prison—was any of this real? The food certainly smelled real enough, though, and Gin’s growling stomach agreed. She hurried along back to the room and Sath.
Sath tried to remain calm, but his mind was wandering down the worst-case scenario paths with such wild abandon that he was barely able to stay seated and relaxed. She had been gone far too long in his estimation—and there were dragonkind all over the inn. Sath did not trust them as far as he could throw them at when it came to Gin’s safety, but he was especially concerned about that one male who clearly had human ancestry. After all, that rotten excuse for a knight Dorlagar had been human, hadn’t he? The scent was familiar, even if it wasn’t him behind the bar. Clearly, Gin had a soft spot for the race, considering how much mercy she had shown him. But that was just her nature, Sath chided himself. She gave everyone in her life more chances to hurt her than they deserved, himself included, and often that was exactly what they did in return. He derailed that train of thought before it arrived at the wizard, and instead focused on her small, constant presence in the back of his mind, searching for any slight hint that she was nearby. When he heard the familiar sound of her leather boots hitting the stone floor, he breathed a sigh of relief that, at his core, was a happy roaring purr. She opened the door only moments afterward.
“Sath?” she asked as she looked at him. “Are you okay?”
Sath took a deep breath and started to answer her, but the scent that filled his nose stopped him before the first word left his lips. Human? Well, of course, so many of the dragonkind here were half-human, why wouldn’t she have that scent on her? But no, it was more than that. He took another breath to try and sort out where he had smelled that before. “Yeah,” he replied absently. “I’m fine.”
“You will not believe who I met while waiting for the food!” As she moved closer to him, the strange scent intermingled with Gin’s own sunflowers and Sath was finding it hard to concentrate.
“You were gone a long time,” he said. “I was starting to worry.”
“Bah, I’m fine. I’m not so worried about a bunch of dragonkind,” Gin scoffed. “But I can’t wait to see what that lovely young lady in the kitchen has made for us, it smells divine!”
“So…who did you meet downstairs?” Sath asked as he tried to isolate the strange scent coming from her. Suddenly a memory hit him in the face like a well-placed swing of a club. His worst fears coalesced into staggering detail. Sath sprang from the bed and grabbed Gin by her shoulders, burying his face in her neck and hair and inhaling deeply. A growl rumbled through his torso. “Dorlagar…” he hissed.
“Not exactly…but certainly a relative of his—Sath? What’s wrong?” Sath was still staring through her, his eyes clouding over with bloodlust as his nostrils filled with the scent of Dorlagar, the human that hurt Gin so many seasons ago. “Sath!” He was gripping her shoulders so hard that he almost cut through the leather tunic she wore with his deadly claws. “Sath put me down,” she said through gritted teeth. A tiny rivulet of bright red blood ran down each of her arms as Sath’s claws broke her skin. “Sath…you are hurting me…”
Sath met her gaze, and the need to hurt and kill fade slowly from his teal eyes. “Gin…oh, na’hina!” He released her, and then backed away from her. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Gin said as she tried the most potent healing magic she knew, but nothing happened. She spoke ancient words in Elvish and found that only the most rudimentary magic worked. The wounds were not healing fast enough to suit Sath, who dug in a pocket of his tunic. He retrieved a small leather pouch from which he carefully removed a foul-smelling paste on one of his fingers.
“Here,” he said. “Let me help.” Gin looked at him, her eyes wide with curiosity—and fear. Her lack of ability to heal herself was ramping up her anxiety. It was not doing wonders for him either, truth be told. He reached to smooth it onto her wounds, but Gin flinched away at the last moment.
“Did that come from the wizard at the Outpost, too?” she asked warily.
“No, this was a recipe of my mother’s. Put it on the scratches, it should stop the bleeding almost immediately,” he said, holding his finger out to her. Gin did as he said, amazed when the bleeding stopped, and the stinging pain faded away.
“Thank you, Sath,” she said. “I’m sorry that I -” Sath held up a hand to stop her. She nodded, sadly. “I ran into Josiah Dawnshadow as I was waiting for our food to be ready. I don’t think that he knew that I recognized his surname because he didn’t seem to recognize me at all. But I tried my best to get away from him as soon as possible. He has to be Dorlagar’s ancestor, they have the same face, though his eyes are dragonkind.” Sath growled. “Yes, before you ask, he got close enough that I could see his eyes.”
“I knew that he was the human’s relative,” Sath snarled. “You smell of him even now.”
“Do you think this was a coincidence that we should come here when a cousin of Dorlagar’s is here as well? Or is this another part of the Mother Dragon’s revenge?” Gin asked, ignoring his reaction as best she could. He continued seething and did not answer her. “Sath, really? I know you still hold it against me that I stole that kill from you, but you’ve got to get over it.”
Sath cracked his knuckles. “That’s what you think, that I was upset by that because you stole my kill? You really think that?” He crossed the room and stood against the wall, in the hopes that the distance would make the scent fade. It did not. “Seriously?”
“I…guess?” Gin looked at him, puzzled. “Can we talk about something else? It was bad enough to be near Josiah because he reminded me so much of Dor. I’d prefer to not think of what happened when I…when I did what I thought was right. Anyway, I think you wanted a happy story, didn’t you?” Sath fiddled with a string on his tunic, not looking at her. “Fine. I’ll tell you one anyway, like it or not. Here, eat your food.” She tossed a parcel to him, and he inhaled deeply, his mouth watering at the smell. After sliding down the wall to sit on the floor, he ripped it open with one clawed finger and dove into the food inside—roast meat of some kind with similarly roasted vegetables and gravy. Gin grimaced and sat on the bed, carefully unwrapping her food once she got settled. The small
bowl of vegetable stew had a lid on it, and she could barely wait to taste the fresh bread.
“Well?” Sath said, his mouth full of food. “I can’t believe you haven’t started talking yet.” Gin looked up at him, and he beamed a toothy grin at her, making her giggle.
“Swallow your food, you beast,” she replied, grinning at him. “This story takes place a long time ago and though I am not sure you will see it as happy, I think you will understand why I have chosen it.”
“There it is,” Sath said. “Now she’s off and running!” Gin laughed and then put another bite of food in her mouth. “Well?”
“I was a young druid, barely through my tenth season of training, when I decided to strike out on my own and see more of the world. . .”
Seventeen
Into Gin’s Memories
“This is insanity,” Gin said as she crept along behind Nelenie. Taeben was several paces behind them, keeping watch from behind. “We should NOT be in here. You know what we’ve been told about this part of the Forest.”
“As long as we avoid the southwest, we should be fine,” Nelenie replied. “This is what explorers do, Ginny! We don’t go off on hunts that are always safe and predictable. We seek out new places and new things. Don’t be a baby.” She sprinted along the forest floor with Gin and Taeben scrambling to keep up with her, and Gin took note of how much more to cover the trees provided at this end of the forest. It was physically darker, and though she felt anxiety crawling up the back of her neck, Gin pressed on.
“Ben, don’t get lost back there,” Nelenie said, holding out one of her hands to him. He took it, and Gin could almost feel the heat coming off Nelenie’s cheeks in response. Taeben squeezed the high elf’s hand and smiled. The two of them had been friends since childhood, and Nelenie had fallen hard for Taeben’s good looks as soon as she was old enough to notice. The feeling was clearly mutual.
The telltale sounds of a spell being cast caught her attention, and as Gin turned to look behind her fear gripped her heart when she could not spot either one of them. She was alone! “Nel!” she hissed. “Ben?” The fear crawling up her neck seemed to wrap around it like a disembodied hand, compressing her windpipe until she began to find it nearly impossible to breathe. She bent over as she started hyperventilating, trying desperately to take a deep enough breath. Finally, she was able to relax a bit, but rather than remaining still, she headed toward the nearest group of trees and quickly cast a spell that would cause her to appear as a tree. Once she felt the bark spreading over her skin and her feet became roots and sank into the ground, she felt a bit more at peace.
Darkness: A Guardians of Orana Novel Page 15