CHAPTER 15
The Forgotten
When she woke, she was on a pallet in a tiny little room. The room gave a lurch, and the sounds of men and horses filtered through the walls. Not a room then, a wagon. Elaina tried to sit up, but her head felt like a ripe melon just ready to split. Looking around, she bit back her groan.
On a low bed to her right sat two men; she could just barely see them without lifting her head off the pillow. They were almost identical, with near-black eyes, dark hair, and light skin. Even the way they were sitting was similar, leaning back against the wall, wrists resting on knees, slouched in a sort of deadly grace to keep from hitting their heads on the second bed that hung from the ceiling above, watching her.
They were still the most attractive people she had ever seen. If the true spirits had bodies, this is what they would look like. But these were not true spirits—far from it. She wouldn't give them the pleasure of knowing how her head was pounding.
Elaina scowled at them.
"She is awake." The one on her left said simply. A chain of blood-colored stone drooped from his right wrist to the thick matching collar on her neck. Why stone? It is lighter than iron, but so much more brittle. Though I doubt I’ll get the chance to test that, with these two not two spans away. The other nodded, sending a little wave of movement down the identical chain on his left hand. The first stood, somehow never in danger of hitting his head. How do they move like that?
"I am E'dan, and this is—" here he was interrupted seamlessly,
"A'lan" came the deeper voice as he stood too,
"—my brother." Elaina had no idea how to tell them apart and didn't much care.
"Please do not try to overpower us again, we do not want to hurt you." A'lan added without the slightest bit of sympathy. He has all the human warmth of a fencepost. A fencepost that assaulted me when last we met and doesn’t care if I mind. A very handsome fencepost.
Annoyed, Elaina reached for the pillars before she could think. But it was gone. All of it was gone. The gut-wrenching emptiness was as haunting as it had been the first time. Maybe that is why they are called the pillars of the earth, because when they’re gone, it feels as though the floor has fallen out from beneath your feet.
"What have you done to me?" She demanded, holding back panic and replacing it with anger. They seemed to know exactly what she meant: what have you done to my power.
"We have chained you with Bloodstone. So long as you are connected by the stone to any of our kind, your power is gone. As if we were touching skin to skin." E'dan explained briefly. Elaina stifled her pleasure at having guessed what it was—I’d have rather been wrong and seen some way to escape. Bloodstone! Why did Hetarth never mention this?
"Your kind?” she pressed, “You and your brother?"
"And the others like us, the other ashendari." Elaina frowned, translating. It was a peculiar word, but it was certainly derived from the old language of the Order.
"The ones left behind? The forgotten ones?" she offered. They nodded.
"Forgotten by what?"
"The pillars." A'lan answered, sounding surprised. "Did you not travel with Monren and Ravin and the others? Ravin is a Watcher—all Watchers are ashendari. What good would a Watcher be that could be broken with the first web? We are unknown to your power, so we can defend when others could not."
"Ravin . . . ?" Elaina could not believe no one had told her what he was. I never asked, but still! There are people running about cut off in some strange eddy, immune to my power, and no one mentions it?! I thought it was a web, not something innate to them—anyone could be untouchable! Next time I see Ravin . . . !
Then she remembered. He was dead. Dead at the hands of those he had trusted, the ones now holding her leash. Cold grey eyes met the dark ones at the end of the bed. They had her, it seemed, with no way to escape. But they were going to come to regret that as much as she did. Their lives were going to be a living nightmare in every way she could make it. And chained to her as they were, there had to be many, many ways. Oh yes, everyone was going to suffer until they saw their mistake. Better to chain lightning than put shackles on a Creator.
"Now that you are awake, we will take you to the Firstborn. He wants to cast the Linking as soon as possible." E'dan said, rising to his feet alongside his brother. "Come." It wasn't a request. It was a command.
When she didn't move, one of them sighed and both moved in to grasp her arms and lift her to her feet. With their hands at each elbow, one on her back, and another on her neck, Elaina had little choice but to go with them out the little door of the wagon.
The brothers called a halt to the boy sitting on the wooden seat, then sent him running to the front of the caravan to tell the Firstborn the Wielder was on her way. As they marched her up the long line of wagons, Elaina felt her heart sink. There were so many. Men and horses and wagons filled the road in front and behind—even if I could get out of these chains, how could I slip away from this?
At last, the three of them reached the front of the procession. Awaiting them were some of the same people that she had seen before at Split Creek. They weren’t standing at tense attention as they had been before, she was no longer a threat. Arranged in a crescent at the front of the group were a handful of men in charcoal grey. At their center stood Keravel.
"Excellent," he breathed, "Welcome, Elaina." Her only reply was a glare. "In my homeland, in Asemal, we had people like yourself not too long ago. The Wielders, the great ones that served the Empress, may she shine in the heavens forever. They were sent alone on the most dangerous, impossible missions in her service, and many died. Then, she sent them with protectors—ashendari who were trained as swordsmen. They are equally rare, the Wielders and the Forgotten Ones, and equally dangerous once trained.
“After many attempts, a way was found that joined them together, an inseparable bond that brought their minds and spirits close. It allowed them to sense each other, to find each other when separated, and gave the mortal Watchers a taste of the long lives of their Wielders." Elaina felt a chill run down her spine—this captivity was going to go deeper than she imagined.
"When the Gift came to Asemal, it destroyed the Wielders just as it destroyed your kind here, leaving only Weavers. But you have untied the net—you alone survived. Today, for the first time in a five hundred years, the Linking will be cast, and there will be a Watcher linked to a true Wielder again." He declared dramatically, then gave her a cold smile that did not reach those crazed eyes, "there will be two Watchers, actually,"
"E'dan, A'lan, step forward." The brothers did, leaving Elaina standing alone. She didn't move, though the chains stretched out between them. Her head still hurt from before—this was not the time to attempt escape again, whatever this strange Asemaline tradition. How will they link us? Did he not say the ashendari cannot be touched? What is this power? Elaina’s head began to pound. There is so much I don’t know. Too much.
Sucking in a huge breath, Keravel began muttering as quickly as he could, waving his hands about in complex patterns. Watching the web swirl around her, Elaina smirked. She could still see webs, and he looked like an idiot with all the waving about. The web was complex. It used all of the pillars, but the true difficulty with it was when the others overlaid identical webs until Elaina and her captors were entangled in a six-pointed star of the pillars. Sharing webs like that was difficult, but if this was the best Asemal had to offer, it was no wonder they wanted her so badly. If they could not concentrate easily enough to cast in stillness and silence, they weren't half the casters that Hetarth was. She thought she might be able to do it herself. . .
Elaina did not have any more time to gloat before the webs hit her.
It felt as though lightning had run up her arms and struck her through the heart. There was only pain, exquisite pain that did not numb with time, but blossomed in her mind. She was dimly aware that she had fallen to her knees. The brothers were there, unmoving she thought. But then they were gone. Everyth
ing was gone. There was nothing. Only pain. Then beneath the pain something grew—flashes of emotion that were not her own, memories she had never lived.
She was riding on a night black stallion on the edge of a sea-side cliff, a boy child with dark hair blowing in the chill wind. Beside her rode another boy on a palomino just as large, laughing with simple joy at life. Pain like a sheer gust howling past her, through her, cold as death.
She was older, sitting at the side of a handsome, towering man, who brushed her dark hair from the eyes she saw through and turned to smile at the boy on his other side. The older man wore a circlet of silver and sapphire around his temples, and two matching hilts rose over his shoulders from the swords hung across his back. Agony stabbed at her mind with a thousand flaming knives.
She was older, yet still a child, on a field of dead men and dying. In their center lay the same man, silver armor stained dark with blood. He handed her and the other boy the swords with his last words on his lips. There was nothing but suffering. It billowed and consumed, destroying as it washed through her.
She was in a stone courtyard, dancing among men, killing men with her brother at her side. The men towered over them, stronger and older, but no matter. Her blade drove through a man's heart and she watched as the light left his eyes. But it did not stop those that were taking away a little girl, rough hands tangled in her dark hair, dragging her away. Tears glistened on her cheeks. She was an angel. Beside the angel child was a still form wrapped in blue and white silk. The dead woman had the same face as the little girl, matured and ripened. Anguish exploded, obliterating all else. It rang out like a bell, echoing, reverberating to her very core. She was undone.
As suddenly as it began, it was over. The memories, the torture was gone. The dark of the night and the road appeared again through the white mist that shrouded her eyes. Elaina shuddered back into her own mind, desperate for the pain and the memories to stop. Tears were coursing down her cheeks.
What web was that? In the name of Truth . . .
She had invaded their lives, forced a path where there should be none. Had they seen bits of her memories? Felt something of her soul as well? How can they do that, mere casters? And how did they touch these strange untouchable men?
But it was too late for regret, and confusion did nothing. They were bound. All that remained now was a strange ache in her chest that was slowly subsiding with the pain, the foreign, dangerous, vibrant feeling of two souls, one a shade deeper than the other, one a hair darker. They were not perfect, but they were certainly beautiful. Tragically sad and terribly noble and beautiful.
It frustrated her that they were not as ugly as their deeds. If their faces have to be so fair, why are their souls too, with all of the hideousness that they are a part of? How can chaining a person like a dog not leave some awful mark on them? What of killing Ravin, and however many more?
As her impression of their true selves faded, some small barb remained. In her head something was different. Eyes closed and dizzy, Elaina felt she could tell exactly where the two of them were. Keravel's smiling face took on a new meaning—of course he is pleased, now his hounds could find me if ever I managed to escape.
On her hands and knees, Elaina looked up to find the ashendari exactly where the Link told her they were. Both had dropped to one knee, each with a fist pressed into the dusty stones and their faces was contorted with pain. It was the first time she had seen anything on those beautiful stony faces, all angles and planes, and it quickly faded. The first time she had seen it with her own eyes, she realized, instead of through their own. The thought made her flinch. Perhaps if you suffered that much, the true spirits forgave a betrayal here, an enslavement there.
Firstborn Keravel examined his charges for a long moment, smile curling his lips. Elaina could hardly focus on his gleeful face through the ringing in her head.
"Well, that is finished. Do you feel her, Watchers?" Collecting themselves, the brothers rose and bowed their affirmation like a matched pair of horses. Keravel's smile grew. "Excellent. Now the oath."
"Covemale dasfinya, ancirial escaraneal, av'hasimel priol'ar, av'itasangua priol'ar, orisasal priol'ar," they swore to shield and follow in the language of the Guardians. their pain before hers, their blood before hers, their lives before hers. They must not interpret that very literally, since they’re happy to keep me in chains like a pet. Keravel clasped his hands together pleasantly.
"Watchers, see to the Wielder. Return to your quarters, and keep me informed. Only one of you need be chained to her at a time, now. The other may come see me at dawn—I will have questions." With another bow that made the Bloodstone click together softly, they turned, lifted Elaina to her feet again, and led her back to their wagon while the reluctant stream of carts, men, and horses lurched back into motion toward Hurndrith.