The journey to Corvyn would be nothing like the journey from Quondoon. When Kilmorda had been decimated and her people destroyed and scattered, her ships had remained in her harbors, empty, of no use or interest to the scourge of conquering birdmen. In recent years, King Tiras had attempted to rebuild the industry, sending teams of tradesmen and sailors to repair the ships docked at Kilmorda’s ports and sail them to the ports in Corvyn and Firi. But with the destruction in Porta, Dendar and Willa, and no one to resume trade on the other side of the Jyraen Sea, those ships had gone from the Bay of Brisson, tucked between Kilmorda and Corvyn, to the harbors in Firi and back again, following the Jeruvian coast, never venturing to the lands across the Jyraen Sea.
The Bay of Brisson lay directly north of Lord Corvyn’s fortress in the Corvar Mountains and word had already been sent to him that two ships should be readied, sailors gathered, and supplies loaded. One of the two ships en route to Dendar would carry an envoy to send east into Willa, and negotiations were already underway to send another expedition from Firi to explore what remained of Porta.
There was no love or familial feeling between Lord Corvyn and his daughter, the queen, and no loyalty or allegiance to King Tiras. The history between the provinces was long and painful, riddled with fear and injustice, political maneuvering and personal undermining. But Lord Corvyn was not a stupid man. Tiras was eager to resume old trade routes and reestablish connections lost to the Volgar blight. If the king wanted to commission two ships and the labor to sail them, Lord Corvyn would oblige, and happily. He would also make an obscene profit, Kjell had no doubt. If the ships were lost, they had never been Lord Corvyn’s ships to begin with, and if they returned with good news and the possibility of new trade, all the better.
The ships were to sail from the Bay of Brisson across the Jyraen Sea, heading northwest toward Dendar. When they arrived in the Bay of Dendar, Kjell, Queen Saoirse, and one contingent would continue to the Valley of Caarn while the other would head east to the realm once known as Willa. The journey across the waters would take them little more than a week, if all went well.
Tiras had put his steward over the cargo, the caravan, and the men who would travel to Corvyn, and from Corvyn, to Dendar. Kjell made a few minor adjustments and put himself in charge. The steward gratefully turned it over to him, and just after dawn on a midsummer Jeruvian morning, ten wagons, forty horses, and fifty people—members of the King’s Guard, a Star Maker, a queen, two maids, a blacksmith, a cook, a carpenter, and a slew of the Gifted, claiming talents just obscure enough to make them more odd than awe-inducing—left for Corvyn. Thirty sailors and two ships’ captains would meet them at the Bay of Brisson in Corvyn, ready to sail.
He hadn’t told Sasha he was coming, hadn’t seen her at all since he left her asleep in the straw. Telling her his intentions implied he needed a response or permission from her. He didn’t need either. So he didn’t tell her.
When she saw him, mounted on Lucian, making the rounds through the assembled men and wagons, she had stopped abruptly, Padrig beside her. The Spinner said something to her and touched her arm, but her gaze never left Kjell’s face, and she approached him with careful eyes and clenched hands, Padrig trailing her with disapproval and despair.
“I didn’t think I would see you again,” she said, her face a brittle mask, her voice strained. “Did you come to say goodbye?” she whispered, the word catching in her throat.
“No,” Kjell clipped, and her mask wobbled and cracked. He looked away, searching the horizon and finding his strength. “I’m coming with you,” he said.
The mask shattered and her eyes shone. For a moment neither of them breathed, the pain was so sharp and sweet. Then she reached for his hand. He took it, unable to bear her gaze for more than a heartbeat, but she didn’t make him wait that long.
“Thank you, Captain,” she whispered, transporting them both to the outskirts of Solemn, to the moment he turned and went back for her. But this time, he would follow.
She didn’t linger or say more, but released his hand and moved away, not giving either of them more than that moment. A member of his guard escorted her to the stable master, who held the reins of a grey Kjell had chosen himself, a horse he’d watched grow from a foal, a mount that had never nipped or spooked and had never thrown a rider. But Padrig held back, his eyes on Kjell, his expression bleak.
“Captain,” Padrig warned softly. “You will only cause her more pain.”
“The pain she feels is not my doing, Spinner,” Kjell shot back.
“Will you tell King Aren that you are in love with her?” Padrig pressed, his voice pitched low, his eyes lower.
“I betrayed no one, Spinner. She betrayed no one. You and your king betrayed her. And if King Aren sits on his throne waiting for his queen to return to him after all this time, that is what I will tell him,” Kjell answered.
Lucian whinnied and tossed his head, agreeing, and Kjell found Jerick who had mounted his horse and signaled to the trumpeters on the wall. Kjell had only one more thing to say to the man.
“You do not get to make decisions for her anymore, Spinner. She will not be at your mercy. You will be at mine. Do you understand?”
Kjell waited until Padrig lifted his gaze, signaling he had heard. Then he urged Lucian to the front of the caravan, his eyes touching briefly on the green flags of Jeru, on her gleaming black walls, on her peaks and vales. He would miss her. But he would rather miss Jeru than long for Sasha, though he knew he would do both. Neither belonged to him, and he doubted either would ever let him go.
He found his brother standing on the ramparts, Lark beside him, and Kjell raised his sword in fealty and farewell as the horns began to wail, dancing from pitch to pitch and ending on a prolonged cry that echoed in his chest. Tiras raised a hand, keeping it lifted as if he would call him back, and Lark sent him a prayer across the distance, her words soft and sweet in his mind.
“Jeru needs Kjell,” Tiras repeated, standing in the northernmost rampart with Lark, watching the caravan leave for Corvyn, and beyond that, for a destination no one was certain still existed.
“Jeru has you. And me. Maybe . . . Dendar needs Kjell,” Lark said.
“It will end badly,” Tiras worried.
“Be careful with your words, husband,” Lark warned. “Maybe it will not end at all.”
“You are speaking in riddles, Lark.”
“He can’t remain here. The moment he saved Saoirse’s life, his path was set. Just as mine was set the moment I saved yours.”
“He deserves happiness,” Tiras said.
“Then those are the words we will say.”
Tiras could not watch as the wagons, loaded with supplies, disappeared. He couldn’t bear it. With uncharacteristic impatience he changed, leaving his clothes in a pool where he’d stood, becoming an instantaneous extension of wings and flight, taking to the sky to follow his brother for just a little longer.
Lark watched him go and spoke a prayer into the breeze, asking the Creator for his blessing.
In the lands we cannot see,
In the hearts we do not know,
In the kingdom of the trees,
Where my brother now must go.
Give him hope amid the pain,
Love amid the hate.
May safety guide his footsteps.
May mercy be his fate.
Northern Degn was temperate and grassy, with endless grazing and plenty of open space, but Corvyn was mountainous and cool with towering pines and winding ascents and descents. They wouldn’t go to the lord’s keep in Corvyn, but would cut across Degn and enter Corvyn where the Nehru River clipped the border. From there they would follow the river along the Corvar Mountains which extended into the southwest corner of Kilmorda. At the northern tip of the Corvars they would veer east to the Bay of Brisson which was shared by the two provinces.
It was the shortest course, a route with easy access to water and plenty of vegetation for the animals, but water meant the possibility of pockets of Volgar. Volgar mated, but they didn’t reproduce. It was an instinctual exercise that bore no fruit. They built nests that never sheltered eggs, and they’d lost their Creator. They had no way to regenerate, a dwindling food supply, and continual decimation had winnowed their numbers drastically. But Kjell knew it would be foolish to think the threat had been completely extinguished.
The women that had been brought on the journey to assist Sasha were put to work attending other things. The queen kept her own company and had no desire or need to be waited on. That much had not changed. She rode the plodding grey with gentle eyes and steady feet, and Kjell checked the horse’s saddle, his bindings, and his hooves continually, determined to avoid calamity. He would have felt better if Sasha was riding with him on Lucian. But that was not possible.
Sasha was different, her back straighter, like she stood guard over a past that demanded her protection. Or maybe her memories carried with them walls that she was forced to erect. She was more subdued, more introspective, as if consumed by the images of her old life, and Kjell wished he could see her memories too, just to feel close to her again.
His men seemed to understand that she was not the same Sasha anymore, not the girl who slept at his feet and followed him wherever he went. It was odd really. Sasha had discovered she was a queen instead of a slave, and it seemed a weight instead of a buoy, a burden instead of a blessing. She kept to herself when she slept, staring up at the firmament like her star was still embedded there, winking down at her. Padrig stayed at her side, but Kjell could not trust the man, nor could he imagine he would be much protection against the night. So Kjell stationed a guard to watch the camp and one to watch the queen, and though it hurt to be near her, Kjell was never very far.
One night she woke him, her hand on his shoulder, and he forgot for a moment that they were not on the Jandarian plain. Freed by sleep, he sat up instantly and pulled her into his arms. She let him hold her for a heartbeat, her body soft against him, her lips on his temple before she withdrew. Her eyes bore the echoes of premonition, and he smoothed back her hair, meeting her gaze, trying to tighten his thoughts and narrow his focus.
“We need to break camp, Captain,” she urged.
“What did you see?”
“The rocks are falling,” she said numbly, as if they were at that very moment, tumbling all around them. But the night was silent, the precipices peaceful.
She closed her eyes, and he waited for her to sort through the pieces of her dream. When she opened her eyes again, her face inches from his own, her gaze was clearer, her voice strong.
“I don’t know when. The moon is lower when they fall.” She looked up and tracked the distance across the sky before staring back at the looming wall of quiet stone. “I think there is time. But those are the rocks I saw.” She pointed at the crags that rose directly above them, overlooking the quiet clearing ringed with trees and the rushing sounds of the Nehru River beyond.
Kjell rose immediately and with haste and few explanations, they woke the camp, hitched the horses to the wagons, and began to ease the weary caravan through the clearing and away from the Corvar cliffs, their eyes continually rising to the formation they left behind, a crouching rock creature waiting to leap from the ledge and bury them beneath his bulk.
It began as a smattering of gravel, dusting their heads and bouncing off the rocks. Then the ground rumbled beneath their feet and a mighty crack split the air. The horses shrieked and pulled against their reins, and the travelers picked up their pace, tired mutterings and doubtful glances converted to incredulous belief and surging adrenaline.
A woman’s scream pierced the night, and the caravan froze, ears perked, faces lifted, wagons halted. The sound ricocheted around them, behind them, above them, beneath them, beyond them. The women in the caravan eyed each other in wonder. None of them had uttered a sound. The scream came again, more horror than pain, and the rumbling turned into a roar.
“Keep going toward the river!” Kjell bellowed, fear sharpening his instincts. He held back, pushing everyone forward, the wagon wheels bouncing and groaning over the uneven ground, forced to travel at a speed they weren’t equipped to withstand. Behind him, in the clearing they’d just vacated, the trees began to sway and crack, branches bending beneath the weight of falling rock.
“Kjell!” Sasha screamed, and he turned his back on the snapping limbs and crashing boulders.
She was waiting for him, the little grey beneath her dancing and tossing his head in fear.
“Go!” he yelled.
But she held her position, letting the others rush past her toward the river before moving into the rear beside him. The first wagon had reached the banks of the Nehru, but the water was too deep, the river too wide, and the wagons wouldn’t float. Kjell just hoped they were far enough from the slide to escape being caught in it. He pulled her from her horse, bringing her to the ground beneath him, sheltering her as best he could. Lucian bolted, the grey fell, and Sasha clung to him. The time for fleeing had ended.
For a moment he thought they would be overcome or tossed aside, the heaving and crashing behind them was so great, but the roaring ceased as suddenly as it had begun. They lay unmoving, waiting, listening. The forest continued to groan and quake, branches falling and leaves shaking, the shift and slide of unstable earth sending clattering sprays over the path they’d recently abandoned.
When silence finally ensued, Kjell drew back, his eyes on the woman beneath him, running his hands over her hair and down her body, making sure she was whole. She did the same, her hands searching.
“Are you all right?” she murmured.
“Yes. But Lucian is gone and the grey’s leg is broken.”
The grey tried to rise and fell back to the ground, its left hind leg bent oddly below the knee. Kjell shifted, easing himself away from Sasha and crawling to the injured horse. It whinnied piteously and tried to rise once more.
“Shh,” he soothed, stroking her head, listening for a note to cling to but hearing only the horse’s pounding heart.
Kjell didn’t know if the grey would lay still long enough to let him heal its leg. He’d never tried to heal an injured animal before, but Sasha moved beside him with perfect faith and placed her hands over his. The horse shuddered but allowed Kjell to shift his hands down its flanks, bringing Sasha’s hands with him as he searched for a song. He heard the grey’s heartbeat, scared and strong, and filled his head with the rhythm, not knowing what else to do. Immediately his palms grew unbearably hot, then impossibly cold. Minutes later the horse straightened its leg, panting in relief, and Kjell withdrew his hands, the blood rushing from his head and making him sway, almost euphoric beside the quivering horse. The healing had been different, but a new threshold had been crossed.
“Kjell,” Sasha said, her voice hushed in warning. “Look.”
From the crater of broken branches and severed trees crept a lone wolf, moving toward them, head lowered, tail down. The wolf stopped, watching them, eyes yellow, teeth bared as if they had caused the destruction in the woods it called home. The wolf didn’t draw closer, but stared as Kjell and Sasha rose and urged the grey to its feet beside them. Gingerly they began moving toward the river and the sounds of the caravan, their hands on the grey’s mane, reassuring him while keeping their distance from the lurking wolf.
“She’s gone,” Sasha murmured.
“She?”
“The wolf.”
“Maybe the rock slide separated it from its pack.”
Sasha didn’t reply, but turned her head again, her eyes scanning the woods.
“She will be back,” she murmured.
They spent the remainder of the night on the banks of the Nehru, huddled around a fire Isak started, too shaken to sleep but unable to travel in the dark. Two wagons had bent wheels, Jerick’s stallion sustained a jagged cut to his foreleg, and the blacksmith had dislocated his shoulder trying to restrain the horses hitched to his wagon. Kjell let others worry about the wagons and the wheels and saw to the injuries, pressing his hands against the bloodied gash on the stallion’s lower leg—earning a knot on his forehead for his trouble—and resetting the dangling arm of the blacksmith, who was considerably more grateful than the horse.
“It’s better than new, Captain,” the smithy marveled, circling his arm and rolling his shoulders. “I will build you something in my forge when we get to Dendar. I will repay you, Captain. I’m not Gifted, but I have skills.”
“Skills are better than gifts because you have to earn them,” Kjell said quietly, uncomfortable as always with the attention.
“We suffer for our gifts, Captain. And in suffering, we earn them too,” Sasha said softly, not looking away from the fire, and Kjell had no response.
“What is Dendar like, Majesty?” a maid asked, her eyes peeling back the forest where the rocks had nearly put them all in an untimely grave. The journey had suddenly become very real for the young woman.
“Yes, Milady. Tell us,” Peter begged. He was young and less aware. The other men had kept a wider berth, a more respectable tone, and Sasha had seemed to regret the distance. “Mistress Sasha tells the best stories,” Peter added.
“You will address her majesty as Queen Saoirse,” the Star Maker demanded, and Sasha immediately interceded.
“I am simply Sasha to these men, Padrig. They may call me what they wish.”
“They will call you Queen Saoirse,” Kjell said, standing watch near the forest, his back to the group, and the travelers fell silent, cowed by his terse order. It was Jerick who dared speak up, as usual, making a new request.
“Tell us your story, Majesty,” Jerick prodded softly. “Tell us about Caarn.”
Sasha began reluctantly, clearly feeling an obligation to soothe the feelings Kjell had injured, and Kjell stepped deeper into the woods, leaving the banks behind. But her voice still found him.
“The people are kind,” she said, “and the hills and trees are vast. I’ve been to Porta and Willa and to all corners of Dendar, but Caarn is where the king lives, where all kings of Dendar have lived, and where we will go.” Her voice faltered, as if trying to find something to share that wouldn’t hurt, and she rattled off a list of inconsequential details Kjell cared nothing about.
“The flag of Dendar is white and red, but the flag of Caarn is a tree on a sea of blue. The castle is not made of Jeruvian ore like King Tiras’s castle, but from the rock that is almost as plentiful as the trees.
“When I was a girl, I would lose myself in the palace. In each wing there are ten rooms for sleeping. In the main house there is a grand entrance, two libraries, a great hall for feasts, a ballroom for dancing, a throne room to govern, and a hall for the king to welcome the lords from all of Dendar, Porta and Willa. An enormous kitchen sits on the back of the house overlooking the gardens with a place to breakfast in the mornings, a dining hall for the servants and a private hall for the king. There are three sitting rooms, one chamber for music, one for painting, and another for sewing and weaving where the light is especially good. The halls of Castle Caarn are hung with beautiful tapestries.”
“Do you paint or weave, Highness?” the little maid asked again.
“No. I’m not . . . particularly good . . . at anything. My tutors were terribly frustrated with me most of the time.”
“You’re a Seer, Majesty,” Padrig huffed, as if that was gift enough.
She was quiet then, and Peter rushed to encourage her, posing questions better left unasked.
“Is Dendar like Jeru? Is the king Gifted like King Tiras?”
Kjell winced and Peter yelped as if someone had swatted him.
“We are not warriors in Caarn,” Sasha said diplomatically, covering the awkward question with a calm reply. “The people of Caarn are growers. Planters. Their gifts are of the earth, not of the body. But when I left, the castle was preparing for an attack.”
“Why did you leave, Majesty?” someone asked, and Padrig rushed to her defense.
“Queen Saoirse didn’t want to leave. But the king wanted her safe across the sea, far away from the birdmen.”
“I wanted to go to Kilmorda and plead for an army to come against the Volgar, but King Aren was convinced that if the birdmen had no prey, they would move on, and lives would be spared. I saw the battle, and I knew he was right. If we tried to fight the birdmen, many would die and Caarn would fall,” Sasha explained, her voice hollow and helpless.
Kjell realized his muscles were tensed, his eyes fixed on a forest he wasn’t seeing, listening to the story he didn’t want to hear. He understood duty and hopelessness. He understood trying to hold a kingdom together when it was falling apart. He understood having no solutions and no answers and charging forward anyway.
“We thought the water would be enough to keep the birdmen from Jeru’s shores. But there are islands in the Jeruvian seas, and the Volgar Liege continued to create new monsters,” Padrig added.
“I told myself I would return with help,” Sasha said. “But I never did.”
“You are returning now, Highness,” Jerick reassured, and Kjell could picture him patting Sasha’s hand with the familiarity that came so easily for him. “We will help you. There is no greater warrior in all the world than Kjell of Jeru.”
“What if there are still Volgar in Dendar?” someone asked, and Kjell pushed away from the tree he stood beneath, stepping deeper into the forest, suddenly desperate for distance.
If there were Volgar in Dendar, the party from Jeru wouldn’t even get off the ships. Kjell would throw Padrigus overboard, bodily restrain the queen, sail back to Jeru, and never look back. Kilmorda needed a lady as badly as Dendar needed a queen, and Kjell would gladly spend the rest of his days rebuilding the province if he had to. In the blackest part of his soul, he hoped there were Volgar in Caarn, and he knew that made him a bad man.
He whistled, calling to Lucian.
The horse had bolted during the rockslide and had not returned. Kjell picked his way through the trees, whistling and listening. There were wolves in the woods, and if Lucian was injured, the wolves would find him.
He heard a snapping and a whinny and followed the sound, knowing he should bring two of his men, knowing he wouldn’t go back to the skittish gathering to get them. The darkness lay heavy in the trees, the forest licking its wounds beneath the cover, waiting for dawn to expose her injuries. The moon had sought shelter on the horizon, and the stars had all retreated to a safe distance.
He whistled again and listened.
Then, to his left, a shadow became a shape, and he breathed in relief, distinguishing the drooping head of his longtime companion amid the trees. But the horse moved and disappeared again, lost in the dense copse, and Kjell whistled once more, confused by the horse’s refusal to come.
He changed course, his eyes peeled, his steps careful.
It wasn’t Lucian.
The horse moving in and out of the trees was dark like Lucian, sooty-maned and chocolate-haired, but Lucian’s flanks were dappled in white, his feet rimmed in the same color. Lucian was huge, bred to carry a man in full armor into battle, but the horse shifting through the shadows was much smaller, almost dainty, and she moved away from him, coaxing him to follow.
He didn’t.
He held his ground, drawing his blade from his boot, waiting.
The horse paused as well, turning toward him, partially hidden, partially revealed.
It nickered—the sound almost a laugh—and suddenly the dark horse dissipated, drawing Kjell’s eyes downward as the mane became fur and the long equine nose retreated into a narrow snout. The change was soundless, seamless—a momentary unfurling accompanied by a sense of arrival—and Kjell recognized the fleeting vulnerability that always accompanied Tiras’s change.
But it was only fleeting.
An instant later, a wolf crouched where the horse had just stood, transformed and wholly aware. The wolf stretched spasmodically and lifted its head, its gaze challenging, and Kjell realized it was the same wolf Sasha had predicted would return. It yipped, a mocking come-hither, and turned, darting away into the undergrowth, leaving Kjell behind.
He froze in indecision, not foolish enough to follow yet needing to understand. Then his gaze narrowed on the shadowed undergrowth just beyond where the horse had become a wolf. The Changer had wanted him to see what was there.
A horse of Lucian’s size wasn’t easy to hide, but a dead horse was silent.
Lucian’s reins were caught in the brambles as if he’d run helter-skelter through the brush, and in his fright, become ensnared. But there was too much blood for a mere entanglement. His throat was ripped out.
Kjell fell to his knees beside him, pressing his hands to the gaping wound, moaning in distress.
“No, no, no,” Kjell begged. “No. Please, no.” But Lucian, faithful in life, could not obey him now. His body was cold, his eyes wide and staring, and Kjell could not cure death.
When Kjell straightened the wolf was there, sitting quietly by, eyes gleaming, watching him. The hair stood on Kjell’s neck as he rose to face it. One moment the wolf was looking at him, the next instant the wolf fell away, contorting and convulsing into something entirely new. Limbs unfolded, shoulders widened, a torso elongated, and a woman straightened from her hands and knees, the long coils of her hair undulating around her naked body. She was far enough away to shift before he could reach her, but close enough not to be mistaken. He could only stare, his hand on his sword, his lifeless horse at his feet.
Her hair was not the elaborate spill of gemstones and waves it had once been. It was wild and tangled as if she’d morphed from one beast to the next, never remaining human long enough to tend to it. She was beautiful in the way freshly-turned soil was beautiful. Dark and supple, uncultivated and cold. But he had no desire to bury himself within her. The earth would claim him soon enough, and when it did, she would not be the one he returned to.
“You have become very powerful, Kjell of Jeru. But even you can’t bring back the dead,” Ariel of Firi said, her voice echoing oddly in the silent wood.
“Yet the dead still follow me,” he answered, not trusting his eyes.
“I am very much alive and very much in control,” she murmured, and without warning, changed again, her naked limbs becoming wings, her flesh dissolving into feathers. With a scream that sounded eerily like a haunted child, she lifted up and above the trees, a Kjell Owl, mocking him with her power and her presence.
Without hesitation, Kjell turned and began to lope through the forest toward the river where he’d left the group, not attending to the horse he had loved, not removing the saddle or the bags, not burying the carcass so the forest could not continue to feed on Lucian’s flesh.
Lucian was dead. Ariel of Firi was here, and no one was safe, least of all Queen Saoirse of Dendar.