Tales from the Front (Air Awakens Bonus #1) (5 page)

“Erion, Jax.” Baldair clasped the forearms of each of the men in turn. They were two of the most competent leaders and skilled fighters the world had ever known, but nothing put a bigger smile on Baldair’s facet than to return to the front and see his brothers well.

The prince held out the reins of his mount to Raylynn who stared at them incredulously. “What do you want
me
to do with them?”

“I’d like to hear their reports; will you take my horse with yours?” Baldair flashed the woman a dazzling smile. She simply snorted in reply, blissfully unaffected by his charms.
It only made Baldair want to work harder to get a rise out of her.

“I’m not your errand girl.”

“Maybe I just enjoy seeing you walk away?” Baldair cooed.

With a sigh that carried the hint of a laugh Raylynn snatched the reins. She started behind Craig and Daniel for the makeshift stables and horse ties.

“I’ll make it up to you Ray!” he called.

“We’ll see.” The girl didn’t even turn to wave him off.

Baldair stared in appreciation of his female guard. She was a dagger coated in honey. Tempting to the eye, but would cut the tongue for taking just one lick. If he had been the settling type, he would’ve long since made her his bride. Luckily, Raylynn felt much the same as he on that front.

“Good to see things between you and Raylynn are as inappropriate as ever,” Erion drawled, summoning back Baldair’s attention.

“Would you expect anything less?” he chuckled and threw his arm around Erion’s shoulders. The Westener was sturdier than he looked and didn’t stumble at Baldair’s weight. The prince appreciated being around people who he didn’t have to hold back his strength with. “So! Have you two ended the war for me as I ordered while I was gone?”

“Progress, yes, but not yet victory,” Erion squirmed free.

“Well, what have you been doing then?”

“Clearly not enough, Erion has been utterly useless.” The other Western man adjusted the high bun on his head as he spoke. “Not that it’s a surprise.”

Erion rolled his eyes, not taking the slightest offense. “The only surprise is that Jax finally found someone to dictate his reports to so that they’re actually legible for the other majors. That’s really been the source of half the progress.”

“And who did you have to threaten or bribe to help you with that?” Jax’s antics never failed to amuse Baldair and this promised to be an interesting story.

“The mystery woman from the forest,” Erion answered before Jax could speak.

“Mystery woman from the forest?” Baldair had a little voice that lived in his gut and told him when things weren’t quite right. Generally speaking, so long as he listened to that voice, he stayed alive. The look Jax had about him made that little voice start screaming.

“We need to speak,” Jax confirmed Baldair’s suspicion.

Baldair waited a long moment. “Well?”

“Alone.” Jax’s dark eyes looked at Erion pointedly.

“Jax, I cannot think of one thing that you could have to tell me that you cannot tell your brother in arms.” Baldair was ever eager to nip any possibilities of rifts between his men. If they didn’t see each other as family, they wouldn’t fight alongside each other giving it all they had.

Jax leaned forward and rested his palm on Baldair’s shoulder. He leaned in close, nearly cheek to cheek. After a long pause, he spoke, “Does the name Serien Leral, mean anything to you?”

Baldair struggled to make sense of the question. “Serien Leral?” he repeated back to Jax. “Why do you know that name?”

“She’s here.”

“Has my father arrived?” Baldair looked around quickly like he was still a boy, caught with his hand in the sweets tin. His father wouldn’t say anything for Baldair’s lack of pomp upon arrival, but there was always that quiet disapproval reserved only for him.

“Not yet,” Erion soothed his concerns, but not his confusion.

“Then how is Serien Leral here?” The illogical stared Baldair in the face, but he still couldn’t make sense of it. “I need to see her. Take me to her.”

Jax nodded and led the way to the camp palace. Baldair could hardly believe the makeshift structure was still standing. He remembered when they all took bets on how long it had before the main hall collapsed in on itself. Apparently, they had all lost.

Erion broke away in the main hall, letting Jax and Baldair continue alone. Baldair vowed to sort things out with Erion once he knew exactly what was going on. Jax opened the door to Aldrik’s room.

And, sure enough, there she was.

Baldair would recognize that mess of hair anywhere, even if it was still partly darkened by dye. Vhalla Yarl groaned softly, rousing from sleep.

“Well, I can’t recall the last time I caught a woman in my brother’s bed.” Baldair’s relief escaped in the form of laughter. He was genuinely happy to see the woman. What had once been a strange creature that he could poke at for amusement and Aldrik’s annoyance, had evolved right before his eyes.

“Baldair,” Vhalla’s voice was as thin as air itself and she stared at him as though he were a specter.

“I hardly expected to find you here,” he chuckled. “I imagine it’s quite the story.”

Baldair expected there to be some whirlwind tale of how her and Aldrik were finally standing against the Emperor to defend their love. It was foolish of them, but it wasn’t as though Baldair had ever really understood the inner mechanisms of his brother’s mind. Vhalla’s face fell and threatened to pull his along with it into the darkness of her eyes.

“You didn’t tell him?” she asked Jax sharply.

“The second I told him you were here he asked to come see you,” Jax explained.

Pure terror filled her eyes as she looked at Baldair once more.

“What?” Baldair looked between his two companions, perfectly ready for one of them to talk sense.

“I tried to save him.” Her voice cracked, but she quickly recovered in a way Baldair didn’t think she could’ve done had it been just a few months earlier. “I tried, and I failed.”

“Mother, woman, you’re scaring me.” Baldair sat on the edge of the bed and it creaked in protest at his weight. He took her hands in his. Baldair knew the power of touch. It grounded people, it reminded them they were not alone, it prompted trust. Whenever he could, Baldair touched people to forge those bonds. “What are you talking about?”

“Aldrik’s dying.”

No matter how careful, there was always something left behind. An indent of grass, a scrap of parchment forgotten, a broken tree limb, or shrubs stomped by horses. There was no way for an army of any size to move through the jungle without leaving a trace in some way.

Tim glanced over her shoulder at the clearing behind them as they finally made their way forward. It seemed like it had been years since they had last moved. Years steeped in death and tension and paranoia and enough uncertainty to make her head hurt before she even first laid eyes on the hazy twilight of dawn that filtered through the jungle trees to the ground below.

It was certainly apparent where they had made their camp, now that the tents were removed. The shrubs the army had used to camouflage their temporary homes were cast aside, left to rot like bodies on the mossy jungle floor. If it weren’t for the cape around her shoulders she would’ve been up on the roosts that were now fodder for the jungle, or the enemy, to reclaim.

But, it didn’t matter now. Now they moved with the force of the Empire Solaris. Their ranks were fat with soldiers from Soricium and there would be no way some ragtag Northern clan would be foolish enough to attack so many. Black Legion Firebearers fearlessly led the way, burning through the brush without a care for leaving an obvious trail. Tim watched them with appreciative eyes. Eyes that had never really paid them much heed prior.

She clenched her fist in her gauntlet and wondered, not for the first time, what it was like to feel magic. The village elders had bemoaned the existence of magic for as long as Tim could remember. They had bemoaned it for the Knights and fools it brought through Mosant in hunt of the crystal caverns. But, she’d found herself developing a fascination for it after the sandstorm – after she’d first truly seen the might of the Windwalker.

Tim focused on their northern headway, trying to put the questions from her mind. She’d only ever really spoken to one sorcerer in her life. But, Tim knew the crown prince wouldn’t be answering her questions ever again.

No one had told her much of anything. It seemed that when the real Windwalker had returned in the fight at the Pass Tim’s service was immediately up and no one cared any longer what she did. Tim had wanted that for weeks, but now she wasn’t certain any longer. There was a new craving for a world she had only been able to glimpse into.

Her eyes shifted to Elecia Ci’Dan. Tim
could
ask her… they’d met a few times in Prince Aldrik’s tent. But the Lady Ci’Dan was about as cuddly as a pinecone and as warm as fresh-fallen snow. Even if Tim could rouse the courage, Elecia spent all her time tending to the comatose prince. There would be no way Tim could get a single question in.

Baldair was tipsy.

Which, was rather impressive when one considered the sheer size of the man. Erion knew the Golden Prince’s tolerance as well as his own and knew just the right mix of spirits to get Baldair to the place he wanted him to be. Tonight, that place was just enough to loosen his tongue, but not enough to impede his performance. The prince looked like he could use a tumble in the sheets and Erion knew better than to get in the way of that.

It wasn’t that he relished in getting his sovereign inebriated. But, alas, sometimes it was necessary and this was one of those times. He blamed the young woman who had been Jax’s shadow for days on end. The same young woman who had just turned Daniel into a simpering puppy. The
same
young woman who had Baldair running to her the moment he arrived in Soricium. Yes,
that
young woman, the one he was nearly certain was the Windwalker and yet no one would confirm nor deny.

It was so irksome.

“Brother.” Erion let a little slur slip into the word, giving the impression that he was equally sauced. “You’re not yourself this night. Usually your return is more joyous. Tell me what’s heavy on your brow.”

“But I am joyous.” Baldair tapped Erion’s mug with his, taking another sip. “For I have returned to find that you and Jax have yet to burn down the place.”

“Burning is more Jax’s fashion.”
Much to the lament of his own family
, Erion mused. Erion should have been born a Firebearer to continue the Le’Dan line.

“Too true!” Baldair gave a full bellied laugh. “And he is rather wild with it.”

“You are not one to talk when it comes to being wild.” Erion smirked. “Tell me, when will you put the others aside and just take Raylynn for a bride.”

“She does not want it, and neither do I.”

“So you claim, but you spend an awful lot of time together.”

“Time does not mean marriage.” Baldair slung an arm around Erion’s shoulders. It was a heavy but familiar weight. Erion was far closer to the prince than he was his elder brother by blood. “Affection for affection’s sake is also possible.”