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Chapter Thirteen
“Looks like you’ve already done the fun part,” Akyran sat next to me. I tossed the first rock back into the river before taking up the second rock.
“Cloth soaked in children’s tears,” Daerton watched with interest. “That’s some serious spell casting.”
I threw the next rock into the river. “It needs to be.”
“So, we’re creating a dam,” Daerton observed. “The bank is going to be slippery.”
“I will dry it.”
“You will need… ah,” he glanced at Akyran under his eyelashes. “I guess you have that in ready supply.”
“Yes,” I murmured.
“What?” Akyran looked between us.
“I need some of your blood,” I held out my hand.
“My blood?” he repeated but placed his hand in mine. I stabbed his finger with my dagger point, and he exclaimed. “- Ecaeris,” he protested. I squeezed his finger, to get the blood to bead, and then let it fall onto a cloth I held ready. When I released his hand, he put his finger in his mouth and sucked it. “T
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“Shit, Ecaeris,” Leongrad defended my injured side. “Fall back and seek a healer.” “I can still fight with one arm, and spell cast,” I dismissed the suggestion. “I am fine.” “You have a -ing arrow through your shoulder!” he replied. I saw the flash of dragon scale overhead as Aurien cut through the night sky, and the screams of the enemy soldiers beneath his fire. We were at the castle walls, the chemin de ronde thick with soldiers, arrows falling swift and fast. I threw up a ward, and the arrows suspended just above Leongrad’s head. He looked at me, wide eyed. I heard my name yelled behind me and recognised the voice as Akyran’s - he was fighting his way through to me. I turned, instinctually, centuries of training responding, and plunged back through our soldiers, to come to his side. He caught me and hunched over me as a volley of arrows struck into the shields of the soldiers that guarded his person. “Ecaeris,” his face was shadowed by his
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The water was bluer thank Akyran’s eyes and sparkled like it was scattered with diamonds. I watched another ship move into the bay. The port and city were busy with traders moving in and out. A strange place, this, I thought, watching the movement from my perch in the open tower window. Isolated and surrounded by a deadly desert, the people who had colonized this spot had been foolhardy and determined. They had come from further inland, following the fertile land off the riverbanks until it disappeared into the ocean. The people were brilliant and deadly, like the environment. Their clothing was brightly coloured, finely woven, and designed for the heat of this land. They wore their wealth in gold heavily around wrist and throat, and their weapons in plain sight to deter thieves. Life came and went quickly. The Fae Courts intrigues did not hold the brutality of these beautiful and charming people, who would take a hand for a theft, and an eye for a trespass.
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The forest had been planted by the Fae although it was no longer held by them, and the trees were thickly trunked and gnarled of roots, though thinly dispersed, the humans having taken the smaller trees and bushes to burn in their fires or build their ugly little houses with. The undergrowth was deep and spongey underfoot, fetid with rotting leaf matter and bat guano. More strongly, the smell of the creature seemed to steam in the night. The smell was difficult to place, a little like citronella, but more acidic, singeing the hairs in my nostrils and itching the back of my throat with its wrongness. Phantom caught my eye. His white hair and skin glowed in the night as if the man were a fire-fly, lit with an inner luminescence. He tugged the hood up over his hair, seeking to disguise himself, but the man had never been meant for the shadows – before the curse he would have glowed amongst others of mankind for his beauty, and now he glowed for its corruption. H
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A skeleton rat skittered across the road before me, disappearing into the shadows. I paused, surprised that one still survived. Vienthrey was frosted as I strode through streets that layered memory of war against present time. There was no sign of the war that had waged here now, it existed only in my mind’s eye. The streets were all but empty, the residents seeking the shelter and warmth of their homes as day turned to night. There was a storm coming, the clouds over the city were heavy. The cobblestoned streets were slippery with ice underfoot, and the chimneys in all the houses streamed smoke. I heard the dragon roar and lifted my face to the sky to watch Aurien wing in towards the inner courtyard. Getting a last flight in, I thought, before he became snow-bound by the storm. The tavern was easily found, the light and revelry from within spilling out as a man left. He looked at my company with alarm, glanced over his shoulder at the occupants of the tavern
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The bedding tangled at my feet annoyed me. I was cold and it was frustrating that succour was so close, and yet unattainable. Someone applied a wet cloth to my forehead. The water running down my face burned like acid. Dark hair fell across my face as the bedclothes were drawn up over me. “Akyran?” “No,” Daerton was amused. “But you can call me that if it makes you feel better.” “F-k you,” I said without heat. Everything ached. I shook with the cold. Fever, I assessed. A bad one. “Oh, come now, princess, is that any way to speak to your devoted nursemaid?” “Am I dying?” “Not on my watch, Ecaeris,” he promised. “Go back to sleep.” Dreams and nightmares interspersed with moments of lucidity. I could hear the echoes of my screams in the room, and found my bedside crowded with people: Fae. Their hands were linked, murmuring incantations. My mother was amongst them, and Daerton, looking exhausted, stood at the foot of my bed
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I cast the portal and walked through into Nerith. It was evening, and people were closing shop and heading home for the night. My arrival drew attention, and they stopped to watch me with the wary belligerence of a people who had known trouble for quite some time. Three armoured Dark Elves, patrolling the streets, paused, and turned back to intercept me. Young Elves in fresh armour, still shiny and unmarred by battle, on patrol because of their freshness. Their hair was braided back on the sides, forming the centre into a mohawk, and they wore the half face helms strapped over, shielding their eyes, and providing a nasal guard. The tips of their ears were capped with elaborately worked earrings. “Fae mage,” one of them said, evaluating me. “That I am,” I agreed. “What are you doing in Nerith?” There was no hostility in the tone, she was simply performing her duty in enquiring. “Seeking audience with Akyran.” “Prince Akyran,” she correc
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The last time I had seen the castle of Nerith, it had been in the wake of the Dark Elves destruction and the scars of that plundering marred it still, but beneath there was rejuvenation. The castle had been built by someone with an interest in making things beautiful, unlike the city beyond its walls, and occupied a square area central to the city, ringed by double walls with chemin de rondes. The main entrance led in a straight line through the two walls, into a walled garden that served as a decorative courtyard, with paved walkways in orderly squares through tidy, flower filled, green lawned gardens, ringed by covered terraces leading into the castle. We followed the central walkway to the double doors into the entrance hall. The floor here was covered in small brightly coloured tiles. A staircase led up one flight and then split into two. There was a portrait of me mounted on the wall of the staircase landing. “I know your face,” the woman Elf had
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