Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) (58 page)

“What was I supposed to do?” he raved. “I wake up, you’re gone. And I mean, really gone. So far away I can only smell the barest hint of the trail you left behind when you took your little moonlit stroll. The barrier is down, you’re nowhere to be found…”

“I said I was sorry,” she muttered, though she didn’t know why she was supposed to apologize. “I don’t know what more you want from me.” She hadn’t done anything wrong. “I didn’t mean for this. I thought I was…”

The word never made it to her lips, but it was still lingering in her mind when he went on behind her, raging and frantic, terrified and confused. Had she finished her sentence, she would have told him she thought she was dreaming. How else could she have walked the path beside her dead mother and father?

In the cold light of dawn that reality was almost more than she could stand in light of everything else going on around her.

Her mother was dead.

And the awareness that her little sister was out there somewhere terrified her. Mirien was scared and alone and there was nothing she could do to protect her from whatever strange plot her mother and nursemaid had been planning together all those years. No, she wasn’t alone… She was with Pahjah, and though that should have reassured her, it did not.

“…supposed to believe you just sleepwalked four miles? In the dark? By yourself? Without shoes?” From the corner of her eye she could see his frantic hand gesturing in anger. “And you never woke up even as you cut your feet on rocks and only the gods know what else?”

Glancing down at her bare, dirty feet, the distant pulse and ache she felt with every step was only going to be intensified by squeezing into her boots when they arrived back at camp. She wasn’t looking forward to that.

“Yes,” she said. “That is exactly what you’re supposed to believe because that is what happened, Finn. I don’t know how. I only know why. They came to me, drew me with them to show me another way. That was where I woke up when you found me. On the unguarded path we’re supposed to take into the mountain.”

“We’ll just see what Brendolowyn has to say about this.” His smug willingness to side with Bren against her was a shock, but she didn’t answer him. They said nothing more on the long journey back to camp, which took them almost two hours since she wasn’t wearing shoes and had to tread carefully to avoid further damaging her already tender, bare feet.

In the distance, she spied their camp, Brendolowyn frantically pacing circles around the fire, looking helpless and sick with worry when he glanced up and saw them approaching, but unlike Finn he didn’t tear into her. He simply surged forward, took her by the shoulders to hold her out and look her over and then he hugged her with the greatest sigh of relief.

“Madra’s Light, Lorelei. I was worried sick about you.”

“Wait until you hear where she was,” Finn snarled before ducking into the tent to put on clothes. Lorelei caught the briefest glimpse of pale, bare backside disappearing between the flaps and guilt surged through her.

He was so angry with her, and she understood why, but couldn’t he have at least shown the same sense of relief as Bren?

Disentangling herself from his embrace, she tilted her gaze upward to look at him, her stare settling on the violet pools of his eyes. So filled with concern and joy at her safe return, she didn’t understand why Finn couldn’t show the same amount of relief.

“My mother and father came to me last night. They showed me another way into the mountain.”

He blinked as if stunned, then shook his head and asked, “Wait, what?”

“Go on,” Finn called from inside the tent. “Ask her all about it. It’s a riveting tale, if ever I’ve heard one.”

“What do you mean they showed you another way into the mountain? Tell me everything.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“It could be some trick.”

Brendolowyn leaned forward to circle both arms around his knees. He felt cold, and it had nothing to do with the damp, autumnal air sweeping in off the coast. Without bothering to raise the barrier around their camp after Finn returned with her, the air moved freely, reminding him of just how cold it really was there.

He hadn’t bothered working the magic to restructure the barrier around them after Finn brought her back to camp. If her story was to be believed and ethereal entities could reach right through it, there seemed to be no point in wasting his energies.

She was convinced the spirits of her mother and father came to her in the night, drew her away from camp and showed her another way into the mountain. The strangest part was he believed her, or rather he believed she believed what she was saying. He wasn’t so sure it wasn’t some kind of trick.

“Maybe it was the drakoren.”

“No,” she refused, shaking her head and jostling her loose auburn braids across the delicate width of her shoulders. “It was my parents. My mother and my father, and they...” She turned her fierce stare on him, eyes narrowing so critically he felt an eerie wave of hostility cut through him before she shook her head and looked away again. “If the drakoren wanted to draw me away from camp, what was its purpose? Why didn’t it just kill me while I was alone and vulnerable?”

“But your father is dead and your mother is back in Rivenn,” Finn interjected. “And unless you left out some important detail about her being a powerful sorceress or a necromancer, how could she have been here last night? And,” he went on, the edge in his tone still fierce and rimmed in rage, “don’t you think she would be smart enough not to lure you out of the one place you were safe for the time being?”

“They were shades,” she explained. “My mother is… also dead.”

There was a surprising lack of emotion in those words, and when Brendolowyn tilted his head into his shoulder, nudging his chin down his upper-arm almost casually, the intensity of his disbelieving stare made her uncomfortable enough to look away. Back toward the fire, she watched the slow, small flames lap thirstily at the dry morning air and hid her feelings in that veil of silence.

“How do you know that?”

“She showed me… things. Images, events. Not that it matters.”

“Of course it matters. She was your mother, my lady.” He started to reach a hand toward her, intent on offering friendly comfort, but she immediately drew away as if he were a poisonous viper about to strike.

“You say that like it should mean something to me, but it doesn’t. The woman gave birth to me, but beyond that, she wasn’t exactly a paragon of motherhood. Though if the things she showed me were true, I suppose that’s not quite right either. She sacrificed herself to keep my sister safe. I guess she just didn’t care much about being my mother… until now.”

Brendolowyn felt like the world was yanked from beneath him, his stomach dropping and somersaulting inside as he lowered a hand to the earth beside him and instinctively clenched dry grass. “Your sister? What do you mean?”

“If it really was my mother, and not some trick, she plotted with our Alvarii nursemaid to remove my sister from the castle and hide her away from the king somewhere. I don’t know what their plan was, but clearly it was something they’d been trying to do for years.”

Swallowing hard, it felt like a shard of glass lodged in his throat. “That’s…”

“Ridiculous?” Finn offered.

He was going to say remarkable, as hearing her say that nearly convinced him it
was
her mother who’d come to guide her, but he couldn’t agree with her and not tell her why. He’d sworn to Jonolov he wouldn’t tell her about her sister, that she’d been so close to the girl, and yet so far…

“No, it’s not ridiculous, but to what purpose?”

The U’lfer scoffed and turned his back on them both, staring out at the rust-colored hills crawling toward the rising mountain in the distance.

“I can think of at least half a dozen reasons, and getting back at the man who killed my father is at the top of the list.”

“I suppose anything is possible, but to trust the advice of a pair of shades…”

“As I said, if they were going to kill me, wouldn’t they have just done it when I was alone and vulnerable?”

She had a fair point, but he couldn’t just set aside the possibility that the drakoren was toying with them. Everything he’d read about the monster suggested it liked to play those kinds of games, thrived on wreaking havoc and panic. Lorelei, however, appeared remarkably calm for someone who’d just learned her mother was most likely dead, even if she did claim such news would hardly bother her. She was an emotional young woman. He’d seen it firsthand every day since he’d met her, and she was not acting like herself.

“Did they say anything else to you, my lady?”

“Only that the gods won’t aid me. They have their own agendas and will attempt to steer me from my path because there is power within me to rival even the oldest among them. He called me the Light of His Light.”

“Leth‘ein Heilethella.”

“Come again?” Finn rolled a critical stare over his shoulder.

“Leth’ein Heilethella,” he said more clearly. “It is Alvarii. It means Light of His Light.”

“Light of Madra, Light of His Light. Apparently, you’re meant to illuminate the whole damn world, Princess. Maybe that’s how you’re supposed to save us all. With light.”

“The Light of Madra is what the U’lfer of Dunvarak call her because she is a woman. She never told them that was her name, she simply held out her hand and drew them from death. The silver light brighter than the moon who saved us all from the darkness. But there are stories told by the Alvarii about the All-Creator, stories my mother told me when I was a boy.”

Edging a little closer to him, Lorelei’s bright amber eyes disappeared behind her lashes when she blinked and asked, “What kind of stories?”

“They say in order to understand the world He created, Heidr used to take on earthly bodies and walk among us. He was there during all the dark moments of this world, silent witness to our depravity.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Finn spun back inward and held up his hand as if to ward off further words. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Wouldn’t it make sense if we take into consideration the things we learned from Gwendoliir? Why else would Heidr want Rognar’s unborn child?”

“First of all, there’s nothing silent about her, and secondly, I’m the first person to chime in and say the princess is more than just a little bit swell, but that’s going too far, don’t you think?”

“The last thing my father said to me was, ‘You are all.’” Her voice sounded hollow and taut, disbelief carving through the words hanging between them all for what felt like an eternity.

It was Finn who finally broke that eerie silence. After shaking his head and stroking fingers through the beard shading his chin, he said, “It still feels like a trap.”

It was an odd thing to find himself in agreement with the U’lfer, but he couldn’t help it. There had to be something they were missing. It was too simple, and he didn’t want to trust it, but Lorelei seemed to have made up her mind.

“And hiking up the path that made you nearly wet your trousers is a good idea?”

“I did not nearly wet my trousers,” he shot back. “I wasn’t even wearing trousers at the time, thank you very much!”

“The time for joking has passed, Finn.”

“So what do we do?” he shot back. “Do we leap at this mysterious passage Lorelei’s dead parents showed her, or do we take the obvious path I found last night?”

“I don’t know that I like either of our options, to be honest.”

“The two of you can do what you like,” she decided, straightening her legs in front of her and scrambling to her feet. She dusted the dirt from her backside with her hands and then brushed them off in front of her. “I don’t know what any of it means, if I’m some kind of embodiment of a god, or just a girl with the weight of this ridiculous world on her shoulders, but my parents went to a great deal of trouble to show me that path. I’m going to take it.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to break camp and ride to this passage they showed you. I’d like to at least take a look before I make a decision.”

“Fine.” Shrugging, she started kicking dirt over the fire. “Let’s go have another look.”

The three of them were silent while they tore down camp and packed their horses. They rode in the direction she’d been led by dark entities no one could explain. Brendolowyn worried she wouldn’t be able to relocate the hidden passage, but Finn edge out in front of them, following Lorelei’s scent even though she insisted she could find her way back to that place with her eyes closed.

It was mid-morning by the time they arrived at a crumbling passage near the base of the mountain, well-hidden by prickly, dry overgrowth. Without warning she hopped down, startling her mare with the sudden and unexpected movement.

She took only a second to calm the beast, then turned care over to Finn before treading along the moss-carpeted stone to reach the mountain. Far enough away she would hear little more than the mutter of their voices, Bren spurred his mount forward, drawing to a halt beside Finn and asking, “This is where you found her?”

He nodded without looking over his shoulder at the mage. “Just a few feet from where she stands now.”

“What was she doing, exactly?”

“I have no idea,” he confessed. “Standing there, as though she were in a trance or something. She came awake with a start when I touched her, as if she’d been sleeping.”

Speculating, he nodded slowly and then asked, “There was nothing else here? No strange energy present? Say the lingering essence of magic still clinging to the air around her?”

“How should I know? I don’t know a damn thing about magic.” Finn turned his head down a little as he shook it, watching Lorelei scramble across the stone, in search of what, neither of them could guess. “I guess there was… something. Something off, something strange. It didn’t feel like magic.”