Call of Sunteri (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 2) (40 page)

It makes me want to throw off my cloak. The air is thick with the perfume of flowers. The sky is deep blue.

“It’s so beautiful,” Azi breathes as she holds tight to Rian’s arm. Flitt darts among the flowers, laughing and shining her own light. Even Rian looks better. He was sunken and tired when we arrived in Ceras’lain. Here, he seems like he’s gotten some strength back.

“It’s completely different from the last time we were here,” Rian says as he looks around in awe.

“The tyrant has been knocked from his throne,” Valenor nods. “Still, we must proceed with caution. Do not be falsely comforted by the light and the warmth. This remains the Dreaming, and as with all the world, there is darkness to balance the light. Jacek has been stripped of his mantle, but he remains a Sorcerer, bent on freedom and vengeance. He is hungry for power. Our victory over him will not be an easy one.”

“Speaks of it like it’s a certainty, he does,” a voice pipes up from the grasses. I remember this one. He showed us things the last time we were here. He helped us get to the castle. “An eventuality. He hasn’t seen the new one. The warrior. He doesn’t know.”

“What’s this, little one?” Valenor crouches in the grass. His cloak floats around him white and airy. Glittering, like a soft mist. Azi watches on. Clings to Rian. Looks wary or ashamed. Maybe both. Stubs pokes his head out of his shell. Peers at Valenor with wide, dark eyes.

“Red Glen,” he whispers. “You’ll see.”

A sweep and a step, and we’re there. Red Glen. Red trees. Red sky. Red, spindly vines with thorns that grab and pull at us. Red like the blossoms. Red like the blood that spilled from my sister. Red everywhere, mocking me. Taunting me. And at the center, a warrior just like Stubs said. Armor of black and red like a scab. Broad at the shoulders and intricately patterned. I lose myself in the metalwork. It entrances me. That and the red, which stirs so much anger, so much need for revenge, makes me unable to move, to think.

Not Azi, though. She’s focused on something else. The two-handed sword slung across the warrior’s back. It looks like Feat, but much larger. I remember what Saesa said all that time ago. How Feat was modeled after Azaeli’s old sword. The one she lost.

“That’s mine!” Azi screams and charges, drawing her own blade. The trees echo with Jacek’s laughter as the two clash together. Their battle is short. The warrior bests Azi with barely an effort. Drives her to the ground. Pins her with a foot. Raises Azi’s lost sword to strike the killing blow.

“Not anymore,” the warrior’s cold voice shocks me. Sets my blood running hot. I look closer, at the slits of her helm. At her eyes. Green. Jungle green.

“Saesa?” I croak. “No!” I cry, but she doesn’t even turn. It’s like she can’t hear me. Like I’m not even here.

Something snaps in Rian, bringing him to his senses. He casts a spell, throwing Saesa back into the brambles. Together, he and I scramble through the red and pull Azi back. Valenor wraps his cloak around us all. Hides us. When he does, the red doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Saesa turns, looking for us. Stalking through the thorns. I can hear her breath through the slits of her helm. Panting. Wild.

“Careful,” he warns us with a whisper. “Steady your emotions. Azaeli, she is your squire. Remember your vow to her. She is not your enemy. Jacek is.”

We see him then. Jacek. He looks different now that he isn’t the Dreamwalker. I expected him to be less intimidating, less frightening, but he isn’t. He’s just as scary. More, even, because of how wasted he looks. Like a shell of his former self. Dark hair. Sunken eyes. Bones poking from his skin. Skin Marked with blue-black curls. He moves to the center of the glen where Saesa stands, her shoulders rising and falling like a hunting cat. Sword drawn. Feral. She glares at us as he whispers to her.

“You see? I told you they would turn on you.” His voice is soft. Velvety. “You belong with me, Sister.”

Saesa’s eyes flash with betrayal and hate as she stands beside him, looking for us. She isn’t the girl I met anymore. The kind one who draped a cloak over my shoulders in the freezing cold. That Saesa is gone. He changed her. He created something else out of her. Even if we can stop her, help her, I don’t see how she can be that same girl again.

I try to heed Valenor’s advice. I try hard, but it’s too difficult. I want to be the one to end this. I want my dagger to be the last one he feels. I want my eyes to be the last he looks into as his life leaves him. I want him to feel all the pain he’s caused others.

Beside me, I know Azaeli feels the same way. Rian’s got a hand on her arm. He’s holding her back. Jacek turns slowly. His eyes are narrowed. Black against black. I back into Valenor, sinking into his cloak as Jacek peers right at us and then keeps on looking.

“It is useless to search with your eyes. You know that, Jacek.” Valenor says with a hint of amusement. “Or have you already forgotten the secrets you’d stolen?” Something shifts around us. The cloak, blue like the sky and green like the meadow licks out toward Jacek. Whispers things that are only meant for him.

Jacek tilts his head. Listens. Lets Valenor’s words influence him. His face relaxes. He seems like he might smile. His eyes close slowly. Saesa lowers her sword. Looks away from Jacek. I see the girl in her again. Unsure. Afraid. Valenor is talking to her. His whispers echo in my thoughts. His voice blends with another, more familiar one. One that I’ve longed to hear. Mevyn. He’s still with him. The two speak together.

“It is time, Saesa. Break the binding. Release him and end your nightmare. Think of Ceras’lain. Focus on the elves. They are prepared and waiting.”

Saesa gasps. Looks at Jacek, whose eyes snap open again.

“Whatever he’s told you is a lie,” Jacek seethes. “He is a master of deception and false thoughts. Who do you think I learned it from? Who do you think I looked up to after my parents abandoned me in this place? And now he seeks to destroy me. For what, old man? To put me to sleep and forget about me? Lock me away? You see now, Sister, why it isn’t safe to remain here. If we are to live, if we are to survive, it must be away from this realm.”

Saesa steps closer to Jacek. Links an arm through his.

“You’re right,” she says. “You have shown me so many truths. I could never trust them again. Let’s leave this place together. The blood binding is no more. I release you, Brother, into the Waking.” The air around them starts to twist and shimmer and suck them in. They spin like they’re caught in a dust storm. She clings to him. Just before she disappears, her eyes meet mine, jungle green. Pleading. Gone.

Azi

Saesa and Jacek’s departure is so fast I barely have time to figure out what happened before a blur of blue streaks past me and dives into Rian. I draw my sword in a flash and spin to swing so quickly that Flitt protests loudly in my ear as she nearly loses her grip on my pauldron.

“Will you calm down?” she shouts with annoyance and I stop myself short. “Look who it is before you hurt someone!”

When I do, I’m shocked to see Mya. She looks up into Rian’s face and takes it in her graceful hands to turn it this way and that.

“Is it you? Is it really you? You’re alive! Oh, Rian! Oh, I thought…” her voice is husky as she chokes back her tears and pulls him into a hug. From the far end of the glen, a fox comes bobbing over the grass. His red coloring fades into the scenery so that all I can make out are his white chin and the brown tips of his ears.

As he approaches, his form shifts. He walks upright on two legs and begins growing. Fur becomes soft leather clothing, a bow, a quiver. His snout and ears shrink into his head, and his hair grows to cover his eyes with Elliot’s familiar fringe. He flashes me a quick grin that’s a mirror of his son’s before throwing his arms around his wife and Rian.

“Have faith, I said,” Elliot whispers. “Didn’t I? I told you I could smell him here. I told you he wasn’t…” he shakes his head, unable to finish.

“This way, this way,” Stubs says as he hobbles excitedly through the red grass. Behind him, Brother Donal fights through the brambles as they catch his robes. I rush to help carve a path for him and offer my arm to pull him through.

“Thank you, my child,” says the healer, sounding shaken and hoarse. “It is good to see you well. Very good. Bless you, bless you.” He can’t seem to meet my eyes, but he pats my arm through my armor and clings to me as if letting me go would lose me forever. “And thank you, kind one, for leading us to them.”

Stubs nods quickly and rushes to Valenor, who crouches to stroke the creature’s grassy back.

“Well done indeed, little one,” Valenor smiled at Stubs, who gazes dreamily into his eyes for a long moment. “Thank you,” the Dreamwalker says before sending Stubs away through the brambles once more. Valenor stands slowly and turns to the rest of us.

“While it warms me to see you all well, I’m afraid there is little time for happy reunions,” he says apologetically. “We are here physically,” he gestures to me, Rian, and Tib, “but the rest of you are here only in dreaming. When you wake, you shall be in Ceras’lain, where your comrades await. Where Jacek now walks free.”

“Who are…?” Mya trails off, tearing her gaze from her son’s face as she peers at Valenor. Elliot turns to him as well, his nose twitching.

“Valenor,” he says. “It seems we’ve missed some of the adventure.”

“Quite.” Valenor smiles. “Wake now, and we shall meet you momentarily in Ceras’lain.”

Under Valenor’s instruction, Donal is the first to fade. He’s followed by Mya, who leaves her son reluctantly. Elliot offers Valenor a bow and a knowing smile before he joins the other two. Before I can make sense of the gesture we, too, are spinning away. Valenor’s way is different than ours when traveling from one realm to another. It’s less chaotic. It feels more like we’re soaring. I cling to Rian and bury my head into his chest as he folds me into his arms and bends to kiss my lips. It always amazes me how being so close to him makes every worry, every fear, every bit of anger fade away. For this short moment, it’s just him and me. Us, together, is all that will ever matter.

We land with a soft flutter of Valenor’s cloak on the grassy carpet of the dome where we left Mum and Uncle just moments ago.

“What happened?” Mum asks. She smoothes my hair back and looks me over, her eyes filled with concern. I take her hand and squeeze it reassuringly. Mya, Elliot, and Brother Donal are being tended to by the elves as they stir in their white chaises. One by one, they sit up.

“Saesa released him,” Rian explains to the others gathered around. Together we gaze about warily as if expecting Jacek to pop out of a shadow and lunge for the attack. The elves seem especially on edge.

“They are not here. She was to focus on Ceras’lain. I told her as much,” Valenor says. He tilts his head, listening to the sky. I wonder, as the Dreamwalker with his mantle restored, how much he can actually hear.

“Ceras’lain is a rather large place,” Uncle offers. “Perhaps her thoughts led her elsewhere within its borders.”

“Brother,” Tib murmurs. Everyone turns to him and he looks up from his thoughts. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? It was the last thing she said: Brother. She went to Raefe.”

One of the elves gasps and looks to her comrades.

“She has taken him to Felescue,” she says. At once, three of the guardians who have been standing vigil whistle. Outside, a rush of wings and the soft rustle of grass tell me that their cygnets have arrived. I glance at Rian. Flying again. He gives me an apologetic shrug and a grin that makes me feel a little better.

“We’ll meet you there,” Valenor says to my relief. “Bring as many as you can muster. The rest of you, with me.”

“I’ll get the others,” Mum says. “Donal, come with me.” She gives me a quick kiss and rushes off just as Valenor flares out his cloak.

“Quickly,” he says, and as the elves rush out with Mya and Elliot to mount their cygnets, the cloak settles over us and we step away to Felescue.

We’re greeted instantly by the sound of a sword fight, and I have barely enough time to take in our lush green surroundings and the perfect sparkling waters that trickle from white stone outcroppings all around a silver pool. A woman kneels close by, unmoving. Red-gold hair tumbles down her back in tight, shimmering curls. Her eyes are open and streaming with tears as she watches the battle taking place just steps away.

“Evelei?” Tib whispers. He reaches to nudge her shoulder but Valenor catches his hand and shakes his head. He rest his other hand on my shoulder to keep me with him as I follow the woman’s gaze.

“You never believed in me,” Saesa cries as she brings her sword down in a heavy arc. By his coloring alone, it’s obvious the boy she’s fighting is her brother. He parries her with the slender blade of his rapier and spins quickly. When he does I can see that his tunic has been slashed and stained with red.

“Raefe,” Tib says under his breath. “Saesa, what are you doing?”

Valenor raises a finger to his lips as Saesa swings again. He’s watching the woods beyond and I look and see him too. A shimmer of a shadow, hiding among the lush ferns, laughing.

“
This is what he does with his freedom
?” Rian pushes to me.

“Just when I think I’m starting to understand you people…” Flitt whispers.

“I admit,” Raefe says breathlessly, “you’ve improved. How much of it is really you, though?”

Saesa lunges at him again, slashing at his knee with the blade. The attack slices through the strap of his leg armor, which flaps around as he stumbles toward the water.

“See?” he says as he steadies himself and she presses toward him again. “You let yourself move before you think. An inch higher could’ve taken off my leg.” His teaching words don’t do well to cover his true feelings. There’s an underlying pain and fear in his voice as he speaks to her. Saesa doesn’t reply. She swings again, this time cutting across his chest with a heavy slash that blooms quickly with blood. The blow knocks Raefe to his knees, but he scrambles quickly to stand again.

Beside us, Evelei chokes on her sobs. I glance back at Valenor and wonder why he’s not doing anything to put a stop to this.

Raefe presses his free hand to his chest and throws up his rapier to block another swing from Saesa. When I look closely I realize that she’s crying, too. Her face has changed. I’ve seen that look in her eyes before. It’s the helpless look of someone whose body is being forced to do something they would never do.

“Valenor,” I whisper.

“Yes I know,” he bends to me. “Do you see them? The threads? Look closely, Azaeli. Break them.”

I can feel Rian’s eyes on me as I stare into the space between Jacek and Saesa. It’s difficult to focus at first. I’m too distracted by the battle between my squire and her brother. I’m too afraid of the outcome. If Saesa comes out the victor, she’ll never forgive herself. If Raefe wins, then I failed to protect her.

I close my eyes for a moment and try to focus on the first time I used this magic myself. I see Stubs running through the grass, his eyes filled with pleading, his little legs pumping. When I open my eyes again, the threads are there plain as day. The thrill of magic rushes through me, filling me with power.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, so I do what makes sense to me. I imagine myself charging them, my own sword raised. To my shock, a golden figure rushes forth from me, a mirror of myself, her sword raised. She charges the threads, severing them. Saesa instantly throws her sword away and drops to her knees. Raefe does the same and holds his sister, rocking her and stroking her hair. Among the ferns, Jacek gives a frustrated growl.

My golden knight isn’t finished. She whirls toward the woman beside us and swings her sword again. The magical bindings holding her break away, and the woman jumps up and rushes to the children as the knight fades away. The rush of energy drops, leaving me barely able to stand. Rian seems to anticipate it, and slides his arm around my waist to keep me upright.

“Whoa,” Flitt whispers. “That’s a neat trick, Azi.” She shines a little light on me and it helps some. I can stand now at least, but I might be in trouble if I have to draw my sword and fight.

“Fool old man,” Jacek’s voice thunders through the trees, causing their leaves to shiver. “Do you think that a victory? I was merely playing. Waiting for you. You see, I know now. I know how weak you are in this realm and how strong I am. I know exactly what I can do and what you cannot do. What you won’t do. Such a waste of power.”

“Tib.” Valenor whispers. He gives him a nod and Tib steps from view, his dagger out and ready to strike.

“Don’t you wonder,” Jacek addresses us, “why he hasn’t attacked me yet? It’s because he cannot. He can only work through others to achieve his victory, and he won’t. His kindness is a weakness. That mantle is going to waste. Don’t worry though. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t need it. I have followers who have been waiting for this day. Armies amassing to seek me. You’ve fought some of them before Azaeli, Rian.”

Within the ferns he raises a hand to show a flash of red stone.

“Poised at Zhagen. Cresten. Belvitch. Yes, even Cerion. Our influence is everywhere. You heard your prince on the stone you discovered. Who do you think put the words in his mouth? Who was Ornis scribing to at the Keep in Kythshire all those months ago? Not just me, no. My mother’s work. My father’s. So many others. We have been lying in wait for our moment. Readying for the right time to strike. That time is now.” He raises the stone to his lips and starts to whisper into it.

“Rian,” Valenor whispers, and beside me Rian thrusts his hands forward. His fingertips crackle with purple energy that shoots across the pool at Jacek.

I’m disappointed for Rian at first. The spell does little damage to the Sorcerer. Then I realize that wasn’t the intent. It didn’t hurt Jacek, but it utterly destroyed his shield ward. As he raises his hands to cast the protective spell again, Tib emerges right in front of him and swiftly drives his dagger into Jacek’s chest.

Jacek screams and thrusts his hands at the boy. Black tendrils shoot toward Tib but fizzle around him instead of taking their effect. Jacek is too shocked to react. Tib thrusts again, this time driving the dagger into his side.

“Julini. Shoel. Zevlain.” Valenor says quietly, and the three elves drop from the sky and land lightly to surround Jacek. Tib looks tiny beside them, like the child he is. One of the elves whispers something fiercely as the three raise swords and spears to strike. Tib does the same with his dagger. Shoel moves to stand in front of Tib, to guard him. They block my view of Jacek, whose ragged breathing fills the otherwise silent area.

He whispers a spell and the group of attackers are thrust back. Two of them land in the pool. Shoel crashes against Tib and they fly into the ferns. They jump back to their feet. A short distance away, Saesa pushes herself to her feet. She lays my old sword down with reverence and draws her own from her hip to stalk toward Jacek.

Raefe tries to follow with his rapier, but Evelei holds him tightly and presses her hands to his bleeding wounds. Julini steps in front of Saesa to keep her from charging.

“You are utterly alone here,” Valenor addresses the Sorcerer. “Surrender, and we shall spare your life.”

“Why doesn’t he just leave?” I whisper as Jacek stands with his hands out and ready to cast at the next person to approach him. The others circle around him warily, well aware that he could easily end them with a spell before they could close the distance to charge him. Tib is fuming to charge him again, but Shoel won’t let him go alone. I try to unclasp my sword, but my use of magic has drained me too much. I can’t lift it.

“He has no way to,” Valenor replies. “He cannot travel as we can through the realms. He has only mundane methods of travel now. As well, the borders of Ceras’lain are too well-guarded to permit him to cross. He is biding his time here. Waiting for an opportunity to present itself. Essentially, this Sorcerer who considers himself all-powerful is trapped.” Valenor explains loud enough for Jacek to hear. “Not an eventuality you considered, was it, boy?”