Descent (25 page)

Altor lay on his bed of ice and shivered. They’d given him a fur coat and blankets, but tonight he shivered because he was thinking of a girl, not far away, who would be crying.

And because he was thinking of the man who made her cry.

Just then there was a knock on his door. Without waiting for a reply, the door slid open and a barefoot figure padded into the room to stand over his bed.

Jane’s face was streaked with tears, and she stood trembling, under-dressed for the chilly castle.

Altor stared up at her, thinking through everything that this could mean, everything that he longed for. There were so many things wrong with this, so many levels of betrayal. He was used to behaving in a certain way; he’d put up walls and barriers because he didn’t know how to be any other way.

In the end, though, she was just a girl, and she needed someone to hold her.

Altor held the blankets back so that she could climb into the bed next to him, and then he stroked her hair while she wept.

‘I don’t know how to be near him anymore,’ she whispered.

‘I know,’ he murmured, holding her very tightly.

‘What am I doing here? Honestly, should I just leave?’

‘Where would you go?’

Jane shrugged morosely. ‘I could go to Amalia. Or I could visit Mia—I spoke to her again this afternoon and she really needs me there. And then there is Luca...’

‘What is it that you really want to be doing right now?’ he asked.

‘Finding out how to destroy the Valkyries,’ she said firmly.

‘And right now you are in the only city that’s trying to find a way to do that. Jane, we haven’t known each other long, but I know you aren’t the kind of girl who would ever let a man determine your life. It’s not why you’re here, and you know it. You’re here to try and help. Don’t let him change your path.’

Jane looked up at Altor, and slowly she smiled. ‘You’re not as dumb as you look,’ she told him.

Fern’s eyes when he emerged the next morning were hollow and ringed by deep circles.

‘I’m late. Forgive me,’ he said, his voice haggard. Even after everything that had been happening in his life, he could still look at Altor with clear affection.

Altor shook his head. ‘There is no need.’

Fern held out his hand. When Altor clasped it firmly, he said, ‘You’re a true friend, Altor, in a life where they are needed more than anything else.’

Altor stared at the older man, something bright in his chest. He didn’t know where such sentiments were coming from, but he didn’t want to ruin them with questions.

They turned to saddle their horses and Altor, struggling to lighten the mood, told him, ‘You look about as good as I feel.’

‘I know why I didn’t sleep,’ Fern grunted. ‘But why didn’t you?’

‘Tell you when we get there.’

The two of them rode at a breakneck pace through the dark forest. They were on their way to scout out the distance between the ice city and its nearest watchtower. Fern wanted to know every inch of his land. He urged his horse forward, jumping an enormous log without so much as a glance. Altor struggled to keep up as they whipped past trees and under branches. Finally, coming to a wide, fast-flowing river, the Elvish Prince pulled his mount to a halt.

‘We’ll have to cross further up,’ he said.

‘Wait a minute, slow down!’ Altor breathed. ‘Why are you in such a rush?’

Fern clenched his jaw, looking away from his friend.

Altor moved his horse a little closer. ‘Fern. I’m worried about you.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘No, you aren’t. You’re a complete mess. And I know someone else who is just as lost as you right now.’ Altor took a breath. ‘I spent last night with Jane—’

Before he’d had the chance to finish, Fern had dismounted his horse in one fluid motion and pulled Altor to the ground by the neck of his shirt.

‘What?’ the Elf raged. He was on top of Altor, his strong hands holding the boy down, shaking him by the shoulders. And then all of a sudden in Fern’s eyes there were flames. Black orbs, full of red fire that licked and danced in fury.

‘Fern! Stop!’ Altor yelled, trying to struggle free. ‘Nothing happened! I swear, we just talked!’

And just as suddenly as it had appeared, the fire in Fern’s eyes dissipated and he wrenched himself backwards, breathing heavily.

Altor slowly pulled himself into a sitting position.

‘Gods,’ Fern breathed, still shaking. ‘Forgive me.’ He shook his head and pushed a trembling hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

‘It’s okay, brother.’ Altor rose to his feet and stretched out a hand to help Fern up.

‘Truly. I’m so sorry.’ Fern shook his head. ‘And I shouldn’t have to be apologising so much to you.’

Altor frowned. ‘This is a mess. You’re both wrecked with exhaustion. Something has to be done!’

‘I know. It was unforgivable. But it is just—it is just
her.
’

‘That’s what I mean! You’ve got a hold over each other that something has to be done about.’

‘But I don’t know what!’ Fern exclaimed. ‘I have no idea! Can’t you see I’m in an immovable place?’

Altor sighed. ‘Yes. Like I said, she came to my room last night because she was so upset about you. And she was crying. You know her better than I do, so you know she’s not a girl who cries very often.’

Fern covered his face with his hands. ‘Ah, gods. What am I to do?’

Altor spread his hands but said nothing. Jane would be horrified to know he’d told Fern about her tears, but Altor truly believed that something had to change.

The older man remounted his horse, waited for his friend to do the same, and then the two princes continued riding.

Fern lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling. Athena stirred next to him—she too had been sleeping restlessly. A thought came to him, an idea that he couldn’t get out of his head. It thumped against the walls of his chest, and tingled through his skin. Clenching his jaw, he rolled resolutely onto his side, refusing to give in to it.

His heart beat faster. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, about her.

Deciding to get a drink of water, Fern rose and pulled on his shirt. He slipped out of the room he shared with his wife and paced the empty halls. It did not take him long to realise he’d arrived outside the room he’d sworn not to go near. Fern sighed, leaning his head against the door and closing his eyes.

All of a sudden it swung inwards and he looked up, startled.

‘What are you doing here?’ Jane gasped. Her eyes were red and she looked truly aghast at his presence.

‘I don’t know,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to come here. It just ... happened.’

She stared at him, quickly wiping the tears from her cheeks and settling her face into a mask of calm.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

Jane looked at the ground. ‘I just didn’t want to be alone.’

‘I know you go to him at night,’ Fern said gently.

Jane coloured. ‘It’s not—’

‘I know it isn’t.’

Indignation flared in her. ‘But even if it was, we would certainly have a right not to be questioned by you.’

‘I know that, Jane. It’s not why I brought it up. Could we ... take a walk?’

She hesitated. ‘We shouldn’t—’

‘Just a walk. Of course.’

After a pause, she nodded and the two of them stole through the silent castle, Jane’s feet slipping on the icy floor. He led her out into the night air, through the gardens to a fountain, far away from where anyone would go at that time of night. They crept under the boughs of a weeping willow, the leaves brushing gently against their skin. Jane sat on the edge of the stone
fountain, and Fern leapt up onto it, trailing his fingers through the water idly. The tiny pixies that inhabited the Elvish city buzzed through the leaves of the tree, lighting up the world with a soft glow.

Jane leant forward and rested her head in her hands. It was much warmer now that they were out of the ice castle. And within the tree’s branches it felt like they were in their own world. It was, if she let herself think about it, a bit like the first time they’d met, shrouded in mist. But that had been magical. This was just ... sad.

‘I don’t sleep much anymore,’ Fern said, stepping around to the other side of the fountain.’

‘Join the club.’

‘I’m going to head out of the city. Make a start on our defence.’

‘When?’

‘In the next few days. We need to get protectors up over the towns that don’t have them. Do you want to come?’

‘Of course,’ she said quickly. ‘I want to help. Would that be all right? Is there another party I can go with?’

She looked over her shoulder at him, and his expression just then seemed very pained. ‘You don’t want to come with me? Altor will be with me.’

‘Oh. All right. I guess that’s okay then. I’m glad we have a plan of action.’

They lapsed into silence. Jane watched the tiny, glowing pixies dance and fly through the tree, making it seem more alive.

‘I miss you,’ he said without warning, so softly she barely heard him.

Jane closed her eyes. ‘We’ve talked about this—we’re friends. That’s all.’

‘Jane, I miss you,’ he repeated roughly. ‘How did we get here?’

Jane said nothing. If she opened her mouth she wouldn’t be able to stop the tears from coming, and she really didn’t want to cry in front of him.

‘I’d give anything to be able to change this,’ he went on. He started walking slowly around the fountain. She didn’t look at him, but she could hear his light footsteps.

‘How can I change it?’ Fern pressed, his voice hoarse. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

Jane hugged her arms around herself, trying to stop her chest from hurting.

Suddenly he was crouching in front of her, looking up into her face. ‘Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it,’ he whispered.

A treacherous tear spilt from her eye and made its way down her cheek. She began to tremble, despite how hard she tried to keep control of her body.

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I wish I could tell you every day.’

She closed her eyes. ‘How can that be enough?’

‘I don’t know. It just has to be.’ And then he reached out, laying a gentle hand against her cheek.

Jane winced, but leant into the touch. ‘It hurts,’ she whispered.

‘I know, sweetheart.’

Fern moved closer, putting one arm around to sit at the small of her back, and with the other he took hold of her chin, drawing her face up. Looking into each other’s eyes, everything else ceased to exist.

Very gently he leant in and touched his lips to hers. She quivered. It was so sweet, so passionate that she felt everything inside her catch fire. A moment they stayed like that. And then it became too hard to resist.

Jane whimpered and reached for him, pulling him against her and kissing him hungrily, desperately.
He groaned with longing and held her with his strong hands, running them over her back, through her hair, not allowing any space to come between them.

‘I love you too,’ she sobbed, crying more tears. He tried to kiss them away, his lips touching every part of her face. ‘So much. I don’t know how to stop. I want to. But I can’t.’

‘Darling,’ he whispered. ‘Please don’t cry. There are too many tears.’

‘They’ll never end,’ she said. And if it had not already done so, Fern’s heart broke.

He stilled and looked up at her, her tears falling silently, and then he simply put his arms around her and held her as tightly as he could.

He stroked her hair, and she clung to him, and they stayed that way until the sun began to rise over the horizon and cast a deep red glow over the world.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked eventually, once the last of the pixies had gone to sleep.

He drew back and looked at her face.

‘Loving you, Jane,’ he said, ‘is the biggest, most important part of me. Without that, I’m hollow. I never want to stop, no matter how painful it is.’ He paused and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

There was an ocean of sorrow in her eyes as she reached out and touched her fingertips lightly to his lips. ‘So we endure,’ she said softly, giving the saddest smile he’d ever seen.

‘I can’t ask you to do that.’

Jane shook her head. ‘It’s not one or the other. It’s not you or me. It’s the two of us, forever. I feel what you feel. If you endure, I endure.’ She kissed him one last time, gently, and then she whispered, ‘We have to be brave.’

Fern nodded, holding her even more tightly.

‘Altor says I shouldn’t let you change my path,’ she murmured idly, trying to smile.

‘Remind me to shake his hand,’ Fern grinned, brushing his lips against her temple.

And then, in the end, because they couldn’t really sustain their smiles, she said, ‘This can never happen again. Not ever.’

Fern nodded once more, not understanding how it was that he was going to be able to let her out of his arms, how it was that he was never going to kiss her, touch her.

It wasn’t enough. From that moment on, nothing was ever going to be enough.

Jane, Fern, Altor, Eben and Silven, plus a small group of Elvish warriors, rode their horses across the plain under a sun that was high in the sky. This time Jane didn’t complain, nor did she wish to walk. She was glad to be there, glad to be doing something. They were going to take inventory of the country—split up and try to reach every small town between them. There were more dream protectors in the packs on their backs for all the places that had had to go without as the Elves struggled to keep up with the demand. From what she understood, the creation process was long and arduous.

The Elvish Princes had warned them that coming upon a village without protection would not be pleasant. Jane nodded resolutely. She would witness, and try to help as best she could.

‘This is where we part, brother,’ Eben said, slowing his horse and reaching out to shake Fern’s hand.

‘Luck be with you,’ Fern said softly. ‘The gods know you will need it.’

Eben nodded. Each of the three princes were taking a small group separate ways. It was only Altor and Jane riding with Fern, and for this she was grateful. She didn’t feel like having to make small talk with people she hardly knew.

Their group was taking the coastal route that would eventually lead them up and around to Sitadel. They
reached the first small town on their map by midday. It was called Nova, and it was tiny. ‘Population three hundred and twenty,’ Fern read off his scroll.

‘No protection,’ Altor said flatly, gazing down into the valley where Nova sat. They descended slowly, not wanting to alarm anyone. These villages, Jane had been told, rarely had visitors anymore. The first thing Jane noticed was the silence. The town was so still as they dismounted and walked through it that it seemed like it must be empty. The fields surrounding were all dead—nothing grew and nothing had been tended to.

They made it to the far end of the town and found the meeting hall. There was no one inside, so they began to knock on the doors of houses, unsure of what to do.

‘Where is everyone?’ Jane whispered. The road crumbled under her foot from disuse and neglect. Finally, at a house a little way back from the main road, someone answered Altor’s knock. Jane and Fern ran to his side, and the three of them stared at the woman inside.

Jane thought she looked like something out of a horror movie, and had to stop herself from cringing away. The woman’s body was hunched, her skin covered in filth. Her hair was tangled and looked as though it hadn’t been brushed in years. But it was her face that was most frightening. Between cracked lips were black, rotting teeth, and the eyes that sat sunken in her skull were bloodshot.

Without saying anything the woman motioned for them to follow her and they entered the house, holding their breaths against the smell of rot and human waste. They came upon a room, and in that room there was a bed.

Jane’s eyes instantly filled with tears when she saw the figure lying there. It was a boy about her own age and he was moaning, deep, agonised moans as he lay in
sleep, shadows passing over his face. It was clear that these people couldn’t care for themselves anymore.

‘Are there others still here?’ Fern asked the woman. His face as he stared at the young boy was enraged.

‘There are some,’ she whispered, her voice raspy. ‘But most have died.’

Altor abruptly left the room.

‘We’ll help you,’ Jane told the woman. ‘We have things that can protect you.’ There was relief in the woman’s eyes, but it was faint. She looked too tired to react to anything. Jane and Fern left the house and joined Altor, his face dark and expressionless.

‘God,’ Jane whispered. ‘This is so much worse than I imagined. If there are people like that in every town...’

Fern nodded. ‘We must be quick. Let’s set this up.’

He went to the edge of the town and pulled one almost invisible thread from his pack. He dug a small hole with his hand, then placed one end of the thread within the ground. Amazingly, it began to grow. It slithered into the sky, splitting into many threads that snaked out and cemented themselves into the ground on every side of the town. All of a sudden, Fern and the others were standing under a giant dome that sparkled in the sun.

‘How does it work?’ Jane asked curiously.

‘The threads come from Elvish earth, blessed by the mother goddess,’ Fern explained. ‘They are grown in the heart of our forest, and bound using the rare magic of Elvish water and an ancient incantation. This makes them eternally strong, and immune to creatures of darkness.’

‘Let’s go,’ Altor said flatly.

‘But the people inside—’

‘There’s nothing more we can do for them,’ he snapped. ‘We’ve done what we came to do, now let’s get
moving on to the next one.’ His voice, as it snaked out into the silence of the town, was alarmingly raw.

Fern and Jane stared at Altor as he mounted his horse and cantered around the outskirts of town, not slowing to wait for them. Neither of them knew what to say, so they climbed onto their own mounts and followed him.

‘Accolon,’ Satine said to the man sitting on the opposite side of her desk. ‘You’ve been here for some time now, and all you want to talk about is the slave trade.’

He stared at her blankly. ‘It is a serious issue.’

‘I don’t disagree. But don’t you think we have other things to worry about too? Like the fact that our armies are being killed by the hundreds?’

Accolon clenched his teeth angrily. ‘Not you too! I get this from my wife every day! Can’t I escape it on the other side of the world?’

Satine stared at him. ‘What the hell do you mean “escape it”?
Of course
you can’t escape it!
No one
can! That’s the point!’

Acccolon looked out the window as though he could no longer hear her.

‘It’s our job to change it!’ Satine pressed. ‘Do you hear me, Accolon? We have to change something, because clearly this strategy is not working.’

‘I put up the protectors, didn’t I?’ he asked softly.

‘Yes, but they aren’t enough,’ she said, unable to understand why he was resisting this conversation. ‘Look, I am not blaming you. I’m just saying that we need to come up with a new plan.’

‘And I say we don’t!’ he hissed suddenly.

His mouth formed a thin line. Satine looked at him, really trying to see him. She saw the jitteriness in his hands, saw the darting of his eyes, as if he were a caged animal. It was clear that his dreams were being attacked,
but why hadn’t he asked for help? His wife was a famous dream walker! Besides, nightmares should not make him lose all sense of his responsibilities.

‘They’re getting to you, aren’t they?’ she asked softly, and his eyes snapped to hers.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The Valkyries. They have been attacking you in your sleep.’

‘
No!
’ Accolon screamed. In an instant he was pacing around the room, wringing his hands together, his gaze never resting on one thing for more than a moment. ‘I’m perfectly fine,’ he hissed.

‘Okay, okay,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m sorry. I believe you. Why don’t you just calm down and sit?’

The High King stopped pacing and turned to her, freezing. ‘You still love me, don’t you?’

Satine felt the breath leave her. It wasn’t so much that he’d asked the question—she’d half been expecting something like this from him. It was the look in his eyes, the depth of vulnerability in his face, and the random moment in which he’d brought it up. Before she had a chance to say anything, he shook his head, a strange smile on his face. ‘Of course you do. And one day, the two of us will be together.’

Satine’s eyes widened. ‘Accolon—what? She shook her head desperately. ‘Gods. Why don’t you sit down so we can talk about this properly?’

‘I don’t want to sit down,’ he said flatly. He was holding the back of his chair and staring at her feverishly.

Satine had no idea what was wrong with him, but was certain that she didn’t want him to live with any misconceptions. ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t still love you. And we aren’t going to run away together. You are the High King, and I rule here in Lapis Matyr. It’s not possible to just forget our responsibilities.’

Suddenly his face lost all emotion. ‘Fine,’ he said coldly. ‘You want to talk about the Valkyries? I think it’s time to have done with the ridiculous Elf magic, since it seems to be helping no one.’

‘
What?
’

‘I’m taking the protectors down from Amalia, and eventually, from all the cities in Uns Lapodis.’

Satine felt herself turn cold. A sudden, intense terror crept into her heart.

‘Why would you do that?’ she asked, her voice barely more than a horrified whisper.

‘I’m going to pull the defence force back. With the money I save, I can finally put an end to the slave trade.’

‘But it’s not nearly as important as the Valkyries!’ she cried. ‘How could you even think of something like this? To rid your country of its only protection? Those people need your help, Accolon! You can’t abandon them!’

He didn’t even seem to be listening. He stared out the window, a vague expression on his face.

‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘You said it yourself, men are dying needlessly. They should be brought home, and then we can all forget about this nonsense with the Valkyries.’

Satine could no longer form any words. Nothing was going to get through to him. Suddenly she seemed to be in a waking nightmare.

And what Satine realised, as Accolon prepared to leave for his journey home, was that without Harry here, she had no way of contacting Amalia to warn them of the horror that was about to befall their country.