She reached a hand to Er’ril. He squeezed her fingers. Everyone was gathered. It was time to begin.
She stood and stared around the chamber as torches of blue flame danced shadows on the walls. Tol’chuk had named this place the Chamber of the Spirits, a sacred cavern to the og’re tribes. To one side of the central fire, the five heads of the og’re clans had gathered with their lieutenants. Across from them sat the elder’root and his cadre of fellow shape-shifters. Between them were the members of her own party.
All eyes were upon her.
Elena spoke firmly. “Three nights from now, when the moon waxes full, the world will end.” She stared around at the mix of faces and races. “All our worlds. Not just the forests of the Western Reaches, not just the mountains of the Fang, not just the islands of the coast nor the plains beyond. All our worlds will end.”
She let her words soak into the crowd.
“You know this to be true?” Hun’shwa, the war leader of the united clans, asked.
Elena glanced to Harlequin Quail, then back to Hun’shwa. “We have word from a trusted source. But on our journey here, we have seen the fires burning among the foothill villages. We have seen the camps gathering in the highlands below your peak.”
Tol’chuk spoke from his bouldered seat. “Even the Triad spoke of this danger before passing on.”
Hun’shwa nodded. Grumbles passed among the other og’res.
“What are we to do?” the elder’root asked. He wore a white robe and no other adornment, setting aside his crown of leaves for this meeting.
Elena waved Er’ril to stand.
Dressed in black finery, he was an imposing figure. His black hair had been pulled back into a severe braid. His cheeks still glowed from the blade he had used to shave his stubble.
A thrill passed through her at the sight of him. On the trip here, they had come to share, if not their bodies, at least their bed. Under the blankets, away from eyes and responsibilities, they had spent quiet moments sharing the warmth of each other’s touches, exploring boundaries that neither were ready to cross yet.
Er’ril spoke to the gathered heads, drawing her back to the moment. “A great evil has been brought into these highlands, a statue of foul black stone sculpted into the likeness of a wyvern. It is the heart of the darkness that threatens our world. In the next two days, we will send scouts by air and on the ground. We must hunt out where it has been hidden—for when the sun rises in two days’ time, we will bring both our armies down upon its lair and destroy it.”
“This will stop the evil?” Hun’shwa asked.
Elena sighed as Er’ril glanced to her. She remembered the demoness Vira’ni. “Evil will always survive,” she said plainly.
Concerned murmurs rose from the gathering.
“But our efforts will protect the world for now,” she finished. “It is all one can do in life—fight evil where it is found.”
“Where will it be found?” the elder’root asked. “The foothills are vast. A search for a single statue could consume hundreds of days, not just two.”
“We know roughly where the statue was going,” she said. “To Winterfell . . . the place where I grew up.”
Stunned silence met this revelation.
But the next to speak surprised even Elena. “I know more exactly where such an evil might lie.” The words came from the strange child at Jaston’s side—one of the swamp wit’ch’s golems, a winged girl of perfect beauty. But the voice that spoke was ancient and came from much farther than the boundaries of this room: It was Cassa Dar. “When I studied the texts to send Jaston from one Fang to the other, I came upon a treatise that spoke of the confluence of elemental energies between the two Fangs. If the Weirgate is positioned anywhere, I wager it will be there.”
“And where is that?” Elena asked.
“If my calculations are correct, at a place named Winter’s Eyrie.”
Elena gasped. Er’ril tensed beside her. The place had a long and bloody history. It was where her Uncle Bol had set up his cabin and met his death. In Er’ril’s time, it was where the Chyric mages had their school—until it was sacked by the Gul’gothal armies and destroyed. And in the caverns under the Eyrie, Elena and Er’ril had discovered the living crystal statue of the boy, De’nal, pierced through the heart by Er’ril’s own sword. So much tragedy had grown out of that one spot . . . Could it be true? Could they have come full circle back to where all their journeys had started?
“Winter’s Eyrie . . .”
“It’ll be a place to start looking,” Er’ril whispered.
An icy dread shivered Elena’s spine. The Eyrie was fraught with awful memories: the dark tunnels, the hiss of goblins, the fight with the mul’gothra in the open field. It was on those empty highlands she had come to accept her power.
“And if the statue be there,” one of the clan leaders said gruffly, “who will lead the armies in two days’ time?” The og’re stared with suspicion toward the elder’root and his shape-shifters.
Elena tried to answer this question. “Each army will have its own leader. Hun’shwa for the og’res. The elder’root for the si’lura.”
This was met with murmurs of agreement, but Er’ril placed a restraining hand on her elbow. “No!” he said boldly.
Angry eyes turned in his direction. Elena’s brow crinkled.
“Er’ril . . . ?” She had hoped to settle the matter without strife, but she saw the hard look in his eyes and remained quiet.
“An army divided is twice as likely to be vanquished,” he declared. “Any hope for victory will require the full cooperation of both sides. I’ve fought many campaigns against the Dark Lord’s forces. Alasea was lost the first time because our lands were fractured, our peoples too concerned with their own lands rather than the greater cause. I will not see that happen here, not on a battlefield where the fate of the world teeters. We will be one army! That we will settle right now!”
Elena’s eyes widened. She had not seen such fire in him in a long time, as if he was coming awake after a prolonged slumber. Having been cast aside as her guardian, stripped of his immortality, and given the token badge of her liegeman, he had lately grown more dour and ill at ease. But here he had clearly found his footing again, coming alive as when she first met him.
“We will choose a leader here! Now!”
In the tense moment that followed, an og’re spoke from near the back wall, bold in his anonymity. “Who will that be? You? A man?”
An eruption of angry outbursts followed. Er’ril simply stood before the onslaught, a boulder in a stormy sea. He waited until the tide ebbed. “No,” he said. “My place is beside Elena.”
She thought to object; he would make an excellent commander. But he backed a step and glanced to her, a ghost of a smile on his lips, and for the first time, she saw satisfaction in his eyes rather than simple responsibility. This was where he wanted to be, not where he had to be.
“Then who?” the speaker called from the back wall.
Er’ril shrugged. “That is for you all to decide.”
New arguments ensued.
“Er’ril,” Elena whispered out of the side of her mouth, “is this wise? We don’t want to start a war in this very room.”
“Patience, my love. They will choose the right one.”
“Why?”
“Because they know I’m right. They will choose, but like all leaders, they must be allowed to bluster a bit.”
“Are you sure?”
He squeezed her hand. “It’s worked many a time on you.”
She glanced to him, not sure if she should be shocked or amused.
Before she could decide, a voice bellowed through the raging debate. “There be a clear choice!” Hun’shwa bulled forward. He swung his thick arm and pointed. “I say Tol’chuk!”
A moment of quiet followed his outburst, but faces screwed into expressions of doubt, even among the og’res. Tol’chuk looked the most shocked of all.
“He be al
ready our spiritual leader,” Hun’shwa said to the heads of his own clans. “But he also showed his bravery in the battle against Vira’ni. He saved our families’ lives!”
A murmur of agreement passed through the og’res.
Hun’shwa turned to the si’lura. “In his veins runs the blood of your own people. If we join og’re army to shape-shifter, then the best leader be of both bloods!”
Elena opened her mouth to agree, but Er’ril squeezed her hand. “Not yet,” he whispered.
The elder’root conferred with his own people, then faced Hun’shwa. “We do not know this og’re. We can’t place the trust of—”
“Trust?” Fardale stepped forward, still wearing Mogweed’s face. He had been standing tensely with Thorn, the daughter of the elder’root. With the urgency and press of the two armies coming together, the pair had little time together, and from their half-angry postures, there was still much unspoken between them. “If it is his trustworthiness you question,” Fardale continued as he strode up to Tol’chuk, “then doubt my own heart. I know this fellow. You will find none more fierce in his loyalty in all the lands. Loyal not just to his og’re clans nor his si’luran friends, but to all who are good of heart and who care for the fate of our peoples.”
The elder’root remained expressionless.
Thorn spoke at his side. “Father, the Root sent us to the twins. Perhaps we should heed Fardale in this matter.”
A long sigh escaped the elder’root. “So be it.”
Only one person remained unconvinced. Tol’chuk stood up. “I’m no war leader.”
Er’ril slipped from Elena’s side and placed a hand on his shoulder. “That’s what makes you the best choice. You’ll take counsel from both sides without prejudice. That’s the most important feature of a leader, to surround himself with wise counsel and heed their words.”
Tol’chuk stared at the plainsman as if he were mad, but he remained silent. Even he knew a leader was needed to unite the two armies, even if only as a figurehead.
Magnam rolled his eyes. “First, spiritual leader, now the head of two armies. What next, The Nameless One’s throne?” His wide grin blunted his words.
Elena stared as Er’ril clapped Tol’chuk on the shoulder a final time and turned back to her. “You knew they would choose Tol’chuk,” she said as he stepped to her side.
He shrugged. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”
Behind Er’ril’s shoulder, Tol’chuk was swamped by the other leaders. Elena felt sorry for their friend. “Will he be all right?”
“He’ll manage. We all will.”
Jaston brought the swamp child over to them. “I suppose Tol’chuk will be occupied for a time.”
“No doubt,” Er’ril agreed.
Jaston shifted closer. “Then I’d best be the one to tell you this. Tol’chuk had wanted to wait until after the council to speak to you alone, but we shouldn’t wait any longer.”
“Speak to us about what?” she asked.
Jaston pulled the pair a few steps away and lowered his voice. “It’s about Sisa’kofa.”
Er’ril jerked in surprise. “What?” His hand fell to the rose pommel of the sword at his belt, Sisa’kofa’s own sword.
Jaston’s next words made no sense, but they still shivered Elena’s skin. “The wit’ch waits for you down below.”
Joach sat in the midday summer sun, his nose crinkling at the smell of the og’re camp in the valley below. The heat felt good on his aching bones. After the days of cold travel aboard the Windsprite, he had not thought his limbs would ever thaw.
Seated near the cavern, he heard a commotion behind him.
“The council must be breaking up,” Greshym said. The darkmage sat a few paces away, basking, too. His skin had been bronzed by the wind and the sun aboard the elv’in ship. His hair shone with copper and brown. He all but glowed with his stolen youth. Beyond him stood a pair of shape-shifters with spears and slung bows, guarding the mage. Greshym ignored them. “Why didn’t you attend?”
Joach heard the silky smoothness in the other’s voice, sly and full of artifice, but he answered anyway. “It’s a war council. Look at this body. Do you think I’ll be leading the assault into the foothills?”
Greshym shrugged. “A dream sculptor of your skill is not without resources. Have you practiced the magick I taught you?”
Sighing, Joach fingered the length of gray petrified wood. Despite his initial misgivings on the journey here, he had taken to trying the spells gleaned from the darkmage. They had indeed refined his sculpting ability. One spell had even strengthened his ties to the staff, weaving blood and stone more intimately for better control.
“Show me,” Greshym said. “Show me what you’ve learned.”
Joach glanced to the pair of shape-shifters, but their attention was elsewhere. With his magick stripped by Cho’s spell, Greshym posed little danger.
Happy to demonstrate his skill, Joach shook off his glove and shifted his staff. As his flesh touched the stony wood, he felt the familiar tug on his heart. He watched veins of crimson flow into the length, his blood feeding the staff. In a matter of heartbeats, the gray wood had lightened to white. Exhilaration trembled through his body, a sense of the power at his fingertips. He had barely delved the surface of the dream magicks stored in the staff. He pointed its butt end toward the ground, and his lips moved in a silent spell. From the end of the staff, dribbles of blood seeped into the trampled mud at his feet, his own blood running through the stone, a trick of the spell Greshym had taught him.
Following the drops of blood, Joach sent his spirit slipping out into the hazy landscape between reality and dream. Atop the mud, a simple rose grew out of the dreaming, pushing into this existence. But it was no sandy construction. Its leaves were a summer green, its petals as crimson as his heart’s blood, its thorns as real as the staff he held.
The darkmage pursed his lips. “Not bad. You’re learning.”
“It’s perfect,” Joach said, trembling with the flow of blood between his flesh and the staff, suddenly cold again. The sun seemed to have been bled of its warmth.
Greshym leaned closer, studying it, then leaned back. “But there is no life in it. It might as well be a painting.”
He frowned at the criticism. “So?”
“We both know why you practice so hard, Joach, why you sit with me eking bits of arcane magick from my lore.” Greshym waved a hand dismissively over the sculpted rose. “This will never do if you want to bring Kesla back from the sands.”
Joach swallowed, hardly breathing. “Then how? How do I bring life out of nothingness?”
Greshym shook his head. “You take and take from me, my aged boy, but you never give.” His voice lowered to a hushed whisper. “You are one step from piercing the final veil between true life and the mere appearance of life.”
Joach was no fool. He knew the darkmage had been passing on these stray bits of magick in the hopes of earning his eventual freedom. But there was only one spell he wanted to know, this last one: how to bring life into his creations. Yet each time he spoke with Greshym, he reached this same stubborn wall of resistance.
“Let me show you,” the darkmage said with an exasperated sigh. He reached a finger toward the rose.
Joach growled a warning, lifting his staff to ward him back.
Greshym paused, finger hovering. “Fear not. You know I have no magick. I don’t even have the ability to steal magick from you or your staff. That cursed spell and book keep me dampened.”
Joach pulled back his staff. “Then show me what you intend to show me, and be done with it.”
Greshym touched a single petal, then straightened, dusting his fingers.
Joach frowned. There seemed to be no change in the rose. “So?”
The darkmage waved to the plant. “Look closer.”
Joach leaned in, cocking his head. His spine sent pangs of protest as he bent over. “I don’t—” Then he saw it, at the corners of the leaves, brown
curls, edges of decay that hadn’t been there a moment ago. But Greshym had no magick to alter his sculpting.
“It lives now,” Greshym said as if reading his thoughts. “It bows to time like all things. Nothing in life is perfect. With life comes all its imperfection.”
“Impossible . . .”
Greshym knelt forward, and before Joach could cry out, he yanked the rose from the mud and tossed it at Joach.
The attack roused the shape-shifter guards. Spears suddenly bristled, and Greshym was driven back to his seat.
“Look!” the darkmage spat. “Do you doubt your own eyes?”
Joach waved the guards away as he slipped his glove back on, breaking the blood spell on his weapon. The petrified wood went gray again. He lifted the muddy rose from his lap; the fragrance filled his senses. He shook the clods of dirt from the other end. Roots! The rose had roots!
His hands began to shake. He had not sculpted roots. Why would such a creation need roots when he himself was the source of its growth? He stared toward Greshym, stunned. “How . . . ?”
The darkmage folded his arms. “You take and take.”
Joach held the rose tenderly. Greshym had no magick—how could he have done this? Joach cradled the flower as if it were Kesla herself. Life . . . He brought it to life . . . He stared over at the darkmage. He could not hide the anguish and hope in his expression.
“I can teach you,” Greshym said. “And I can grant you half your youth back. I’ll keep half; you get half. Equal and fair.”
“I don’t care about the stolen winters,” he gasped. “Just the spell.”
Greshym cocked his head. “My boy, if you want to bring Kesla back, you’ll need both.”
Joach frowned.
“Life takes life, Joach. It is not born out of nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
Greshym nodded to the rose. “That flower cost me thirty-four days of my life. And if you want to bring Kesla back, it’ll take more than days . . . it’ll take a good chunk of your own life.” Greshym eyed Joach up and down. “Life which you can’t afford to give up in your current state.”