Secret Worlds (327 page)

I thought Serid muttered something under his breath as Naloud and Marren started talking happily. It sounded like “You have no idea…”

My eyes met his. The cold dark depths of the Netherworld stared back.

Much of the food had been eaten and wasn’t nearly as dried out as I thought. The ale warmed my blood and put me in a better mood than before. Not enough to cloud my judgment by leaving Naloud and Serid alone, as per Marren’s suggestion.

“No,” I said firmly walking out of the dining hall, into the ballroom, and to my sword. It had taken nearly the entire time we’d been back to recreate a portion of the swords that were taken. Luckily, the Cyrs didn’t get all of them, and I still had my sword. The one Marren gave to me the first time we sparred.

“Relena, don’t be so insistent upon not going. Serid is like a nephew to me. I promise he won’t do anything to Naloud while we are gone.”

“Don’t care.” I pulled on the hilt of my sword, removing it from its sheath and started to swing it in the air. On my third downward thrust, my hand was caught at the wrist. Marren’s deep onyx eyes peered so deeply into mine, he saw my soul, and what burned within me.

He sighed. “Please.”

It came out soft as a whisper with more implied than just a walk. It meant there was something he needed to say to me but wasn’t able to do it here.

I yanked my hand free then turned sharply to place my sword back in its sheath and strap it to my waist. I pulled the bottom of my shirt over the belt and tugged on the end of my vest.

“Fine, but I’m practicing while were out,” I said then left him standing in the middle of the floor.

***

It took several moments for Marren to catch up with me. My thoughts propelled me much farther than I anticipated, fueled by the words Serid spoke over lunch. They didn’t add up, and worse, they bothered me to no end. So caught up in them, so fueled by them, Marren’s thoughts wouldn’t penetrate.

Serid told us that he crossed over with Okelo when everyone else did. He couldn’t say when exactly because he was too young. I knew it was impossible. I scoured each and every face for the hours it took to move the debris and never found his. That was the only time that Okelo would’ve escaped. The only time that Serid would’ve been seen.

He told us that it was only a matter of days after crossing over that his mother died. They traveled all the way to Ghadel, moving around outside the borders of the city, searching for a place he could only guess at. She fell ill from the extreme travels and collapsed from exhaustion at the base of a tree. He said that he was near starving and almost died himself. He cried for days with no relief. Only then, did a woman hear his cries from within the walls of the city.

That woman was Ardren, the Princess of Ghadel. I recognized her name the moment it fell upon my ears. She had apparently been betrothed to a lord in a neighboring city I’d never been to. The lord moved into her castle, married her, but was unable to bear a child—until she heard Serid’s cries. They took him in, raised him as their own, and made him prince.

“Are you going to tell me soon what has gotten your mind so consumed that you won’t respond to me?”

With Marren’s voice finally penetrating the fog in my mind, I turned my attention to him. He walked beside me with his sword strapped to his waist and a cloak over his shoulders. “What’s the cloak for?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He stopped walking, mid-step, and grabbed my arm. I stopped turning my head to glare from over my shoulder.

“Try me.” His tone pleaded.

I rolled my eyes and stomped my foot like a disobedient child but said, “Oh, alright.”

I opened my mouth to voice my thoughts, but Marren’s eyes caught something behind me. He squinted and stiffened his posture. I followed his gaze.

A hunched over figure, fully cloaked, walked with a gait. He was alone on the road. Immediately, I felt as though we’d walked into a trap. I gripped my sword, prepared for anyone else to jump out at us from within the sheltering woods that lined both sides of the road and for this man to straighten himself and try to fight us.

Marren caught my arm. I met his gaze as he slowly shook his head.
Not a good move. We need to find out what he’s doing here and why he’s alone.

Fine. Be my guest, brave and noble one
.

Marren’s eyes shot a cold stare at me. Clearly he didn’t find that funny. He approached slowly. The man startled by Marren’s appearance. He cowered as he gazed into Marren’s face then fell to his knees grasping onto Marren’s cloak and hands.

I stepped closer, noting the man was aged, worn, and covered with cuts and bruises. His cloak opened and my eyes found a horrible wound at his side. His clothes were tattered. The only thing on him that appeared well-kept was his cloak.

Marren fell to his knees with the man and tried to comfort him. The man’s voice shook as he tried to say something I didn’t understand to Marren. Marren would respond with short and gentle phrases in his native tongue. The man didn’t strike me as a werewolf. His eyes were the shade of storm clouds, his skin the shade of the wood of a tree. His dark hair held strings of silver and white. It stuck out in spots from under his hood.

The man said his final words through gurgled gasps as blood rose to his mouth, he uttered in common. “Lernn. Find Lernn.”

I didn’t notice until the man’s body went limp that his eyes were fixed on me. Sending a straight shot of a cold chill through my body and clutching my spine that would last much longer than any winter’s chill. He spoke to me. He told me to find Lernn.

“Who is Lernn?” I asked Marren. My voice cracked as though all the moisture left my throat.

“I’m not sure, but there’s something else.”

“What?”

“I don’t know yet. It doesn’t make sense. We need to get back and find Naloud.”

Fear clutched at my heart. A fear that didn’t belong to me and quickly faded. Marren was afraid, and he tried desperately to keep it from me. Instead of fighting with him about it, I turned on my heels and ran for home.

***

When I approached the door, I sensed something was wrong. It hung open into the foyer, an eerie silence coming from within. A dagger tacked a note to middle of the door. I ignored it, desperately running through every room and every hiding spot Naloud used until I exhausted all means of finding her inside. I ran through the garden and the nearby woods behind the house. Still nowhere to be found. I couldn’t smell her or sense her. My heart drummed frantically, its beats echoing loudly in my mind. I ran back to the front door as Marren stepped slowly into the foyer. On the way in, he grasped the note on the door and pulled it free from the dagger.

He read the letter to me in his mind.

I warned that you would pay for your folly! You paid with the life of your child!

His hands shook and his knees gave out from under him
. I was wrong. It can’t be. I was wrong!

I ran to him, wrapping my arms around him and trying to console him.
It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself. Please. We must hurry. I think we can still find her.

You don’t understand.
Serid…he’s…

He shook his head and started to sway back and forth.

“What Marren? What about Serid?”

He sighed. It shuddered on the way out.

“Serid,” he paused to clear his throat, “is Naloud’s heart song.”

The world might as well come down upon my shoulders. It would have made more sense than what Marren said. “What? But how?”

“Naloud is an Ancient descendant. It runs in her blood.”

“Yes, but I thought it only happened to few, and very far in between,” I said.

“My mother was the only one that didn’t have a heart song. She’s the only one it skipped. And even then, none of us are sure.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Serid cannot hurt Naloud if they share a heart song. It’s not possible. When it happens—when people who share a heart song find each other—there’s no separating them. Each one depends on the other for survival.”

“Marren, I already know this. What does this have to do with Serid?”

With defeat clear in his words, he said, “Because Serid took Naloud to Jiren.”

***

I managed to talk Marren out of blaming himself for not seeing what I saw or at least listening to my worries. We packed what we could carry on our backs: a few daggers, a couple sets of clothes, and some food—all stuffed into large leather bags. We changed into our black hooded robes.

Taking the woods, we walked near the road, keeping alert to any movement that didn’t belong. The first city we came to was Hafton. I knew there wouldn’t be a way Naloud would be there, and I didn’t want to go back. Instead, we moved forward, traveling along the major trade route that acted as the most direct way between cities.

By the time we reached Verora, I felt worn and in need of a place to stay. Marren agreed to stop for some rest and see if anyone had seen our daughter recently. Our plans would prove unrealized.

We were greeted with wide eyes, full of alarm and fear. Many of the people stopped what they were in the middle of doing to stare at us. Many of the people we approached in question of our daughter shook their heads wildly and ran as fast as their legs would carry them.

“What is wrong with these people?” I asked.

“The man said that Jiren deceived them all. He crossed over after the fight that claimed so many lives and started to warn people of creatures he saw in the woods. Creatures that appear human during the day but like beasts at night. Jiren told them they had eyes blacker than the abyss and would use mind tricks to lure humans into their trap to be eaten.”

“Gross,” I replied and struggled to keep the bile from rising into my mouth.

“He also said that the king believed Jiren so completely that anyone caught speaking to these creatures would be killed along with them.”

“Enid! We haven’t had word from him! What if he’s dead?”

“Let’s not worry about that until something can prove his death.” Marren tried to speak as calmly as possible, but his words were still tinged with worry.

“We better leave before we both get killed.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” came a voice from within the crowd, exuberantly deep and full of warning.

We turned to face a man, as stout as he was tall, and skin the color of burnt toast. He held a large sword in his hand and stared at us with a crowd gathering behind him. Each person held some sort of weapon, even the children.

It made my heart clench.

“We want no trouble. We’re just passing through. Our daughter was taken from us. Perhaps you have seen her?” Marren said.

“We don’t appreciate the likes of your kind here. Now leave or suffer painful deaths worse than that you bring upon your prey.”

***

Every town reacted like this. Especially Ashelm, where we were chased out by the crowd mad with fear. Their faces contorted into bloodthirsty creatures out for the kill. We were forced to make camp each night, only neither of us could sleep, too afraid a band of hunters would come across us and make good on the bounty announced on posters tacked to the trees we passed with crudely drawn faces meant to depict the immortal races with the reward of ten thousand copper for each head.

“Is this what it was like when the immortal realm was created?” I asked as we neared Yerr.

“This and so much worse in places,” Marren replied.

“How so?”

“If it were worse, we wouldn’t have our heads right now.”

“Oh.” I tried to ignore the large lump that appeared in my throat, making it difficult to swallow back and forced my eyes to tear. The one thought I tried hard to not acknowledge during this entire journey loomed even closer, whispering louder and voiced my feelings that the likelihood of us actually finding my daughter alive grew slimmer.

That fear became a weight on my shoulders. A burden only I could bear. Not even Marren experienced the absence of our daughter like I did. The fear of her not returning. The pain of loss and death is a human experience. And though I’m no longer a human, I still share the feelings I had. Just as strong, and just as powerful.

When the Gates of Yerr, the outer city that surrounds the kingdom of Ghadel, poked up along the edge of the road, I became sure we would be turned away as we had been so many times before.

“Built as a means to filter out those unworthy or unclean souls, Yerr’s magic rested within its indestructible wood used for the gate’s posts and beams,” Marren explained. His words coming out like the rehearsal of a story he’d once memorized. His voice was solemn and weary.

Small green stems of ivy grew like tangled fingers, weaving in between the beams that formed the two sides of the gate. Either side was attached to a large stone wall. Too high to scale, even if I could make use of the vines that grew along its side. There was a clearing about the span of my arms between the woods and the wall. It seemed as though it was made to be a barrier. Beyond the wall, the towering city of Ghadel reached high into the sky, a symbol of how high the king held himself and how below him the rest of the world was.

A limestone road wound up in a constant spiral toward the center. Inside the castle’s walls, it has been said to house a large courtyard garden with the most precious of fruits, flowers, and trees. The opposite of the abyss—an oasis of sorts. And when the sun hits it right, the stone sparkles in a golden effervescence. A brilliance that matches the sun’s.

In all my life, I have never been this far to see the castle’s walls, much less the Gates of Yerr. Under different circumstances, I would have found this place captivating and simply breathtaking. Given our current circumstance, I wouldn’t get the chance to see beyond these walls and get closer to the castle. Not with our streak of luck.

“What if the races were forced to return to the immortal realm?” I asked.

Marren shook his head as he gripped two bars of the gate and rattled them to check their hold. “I would have received word of their return. And it doesn’t seem likely.”