The Well of Wyrding (Revenant Wyrd Book 3) (4 page)

“Besides, when we were in the Mirror of the Moon we saw a glimpse of the past,” Jovian said quietly.

“You saw the past?” Joya asked. She didn’t sound completely surprised. Joya knew that Angelica and Jovian had seen the future a few times, and figured it was to do with their angelic blood, though it wasn’t a talent she shared.

“Yes,” Angelica said. “Amber had been held in one of the tower rooms, and we saw an imprint of what had transpired there. She said that she had to escape, and head … home, I presume. The vision faded out not long after that. She was hesitant about saying where she was going, as if the walls themselves would have heard her plans.”

“They most likely would have,” Joya remarked.

“I can only think of one place she would go that she would want to keep safe,” Jovian said.

“Of course, she would probably want to keep any place she is going to secret, so she would be safe from her abductors,” Maeven pointed out.

“In her current state,” Joya said, “she is her own protection.” This alluded to the wyrd their older sisters had coursing through them, the sorcery of the LaFaye bloodline. “Also, so soon out of her trials she could also be a nightmare visited upon the plantation if something goes wrong.”

“Grace did say that it seemed she had been pulled out of her elemental trials,” Jovian agreed. “That might have poisoned her mind.”

“That may be, but I think the best plan we have at the moment is still Grace’s. After all, with the Well of Wyrding acting as it is, her wyrd is most likely as unpredictable as everyone else’s. I say we meet her at home; if anything happens, go to the Guardian’s Keep in the Realm of Earth,” Angelica said matter-of-factly gathering her stuff from the back of her horse, Jesse, and rolling out her bedroll.

“Alright,” Joya conceded with a sigh. “However, if anything changes between now and home we will change route.”

“Fair enough,” Jovian said and Angelica nodded, lying down. She turned her backs to them and hunkered down for sleep she was sure would not find her that night.

I have been to The Mirror of the Moon, where I suspect the entrance to the well resides. Three travel there now, seeking to purify it. If any can do it now that Pharoh is gone, it is those three.

Sara's letter ended there, and Aladestra placed the note to her right. She picked up a colorful piece of parchment and started drafting another letter to Sara, welcoming the good news. But her mind was on something else.

That is great news, Sara, but in the meantime we need to do something more. Being Realm Guardians, we are immune to the corruption, since our wyrd comes from the very realm we govern. It is that wyrded protection I think we need to extend to our citizens. I think this is possible if we commune with the realm itself, and work with our lands to protect our people. I don't think it will keep them safe from all harm, but I think it will keep the corruption at bay just a little longer until the well can be purified.

She folded the letter and wrote the names of the different Realm Guardians on the back of the parchment. Aladestra folded the parchment and slipped it into the telfetch. When the lid closed, the silver box glowed red, and she waited for a response.

Moments later the box glowed red, indicating there were notes inside to be read.

How would one go about doing that?
Azra Akeed of the Realm of Fire asked.

Aladestra pulled out another parchment and began writing what she thought would work. Having finished it, she slipped it into the telfetch, and sent it along to the other Guardians.

By the time evening rolled around, the Guardians were all in agreement. They would work with their individual lands and weave the wyrd of the Great Realms in a protective blanket over their people.

As the night drew on, the tension around them mounted as it had every night since leaving the Mirror of the Moon. All of them felt they could sense Porillon right behind them, and none of them knew if it was nothing more than their fear or if all of them had suddenly picked up a part of Maeven’s gift Occasional looks at the votary-to-be, who nodded in confirmation at them, informed all that their suspicions were correct, and Porillon was still following them.

“But she is gaining speed,” he told them. They followed Tegaris over a grassy knoll dotted with stones below the surface which occasionally showed through moss and wildflowers. They figured through the Shadow Realm would be the quickest way home, and Tegaris took them in that direction, even if the thought sent fear through all of them. The Shadow Realm was the most accursed of all the lands. Ones from the Holy Realm weren’t welcome there, and if they were as well-received as those from the Shadow Realm were in the Holy Realm, Maeven wasn’t sure they would all make it out alive. “I’m not sure how she is doing it but she is most definitely gaining speed.”

“Perhaps she is using wyrd?” Joya suggested.

“But how?” Maeven asked her. “Wouldn’t the current instability in the Well of Wyrding affect her as well?”

“No,” Angelica and Jovian said before they could catch themselves.

“What do you mean no?” Joya asked, who seemed to think that Maeven’s argument was good.

The certainty of Angelica and Jovian’s statement brought everyone to a halt.

“What I mean is,” Angelica said, “Porillon is the one who affected the well, right? She allowed Chaos to leak in. She happens to be dalua, which feed off chaos and malcontent. Wouldn’t it then be plausible that the malignancy of the Well of Wyrding would not affect her as it does us?” Angelica shrugged. “I mean, after all, isn’t she used to working with the distortions of Chaos? She would know better than us how to wield it properly.”

“I suppose you are right,” Joya nodded. “I makes sense, after all; what’s the point of infecting the Well of Wyrding if you’re not going to be able to use your wyrd properly?”

“What would be the perk of devoting yourself to Chaos if you were not going to be able to work with it?” Maeven said in agreement.

“So we have a bigger problem than a terribly powerful sorceress behind us bent on our destruction,” Joya commented. “Instead we have a terribly powerful sorceress behind us that has full capabilities of her wyrd, which is no doubt enhanced by her perverse beliefs. Great!”

They led their horses for the rest of the day in silence, all of them thinking not only about Porillon now behind them, but also the fact that Joya would not be able to use wyrd to help them. This put a big damper on defending themselves.

“Is she close?” Jovian asked that night as they prepared the dinner he had hunted earlier. It was a limited dinner, as he was not able to stray far from camp, and there were few animals left in the forest.

“Closer than I’m comfortable with her being,” Maeven commented, scanning the forest behind them with a keen eye. The sun was just beginning to rise, and Jovian thought that maybe he should ask Tegaris tonight if there were any places they could hole up that would be more of a protection to them while they waited out Porillon; with any luck she would pass them by and not notice their camp.

“I think she can feel us, though,” Joya said when Jovian suggested this. “I mean, if she isn’t tracking us somehow, then how is she able to stay right behind us and not get lost in all this fog?”

Jovian grunted. He was out of options. “If it comes to battle Joya, we need you.”

“I know,” she sighed. “I will fight, but with the current state of things I’m not sure who exactly will benefit from it.”

“Only do what you have too, don’t touch your wyrd more than that. I have a feeling that the more you touch your wyrd the more corruption you invite into yourself.” Angelica stirred the simmering pot on the fire.

“That makes sense,” Joya agreed.

Watches came and went, and the next day saw them once more traveling.

Around midnight they got the sense of another presence. They weren’t sure what the presence wanted, or if it was even friendly. There was only the sense that something around them was not human; the rest they could only guess at.

“Halt, who goes there?” A voice asked from out of the darkness. It was a booming voice, one that filled them with terror and thwarted their every attempt to continue. They halted as the voice had commanded, thinking of the chaos dwarves said to haunt the Realm of Earth.

“I asked who goes there,” the voice said. Jovian tried looking around, but once they stopped it was like a web of wyrd was wrapped around them, and he couldn’t move much at all.

“Jovian, Angelica, Joya, and Maeven,” Jovian said.

“There is dalua in the woods tonight,” the voice said.

“There has been dalua in the woods for a long time now,” another voice said, joining the first, and though it sounded female it was just as booming as the one before it.

“We swear it’s not us,” Joya said, her cheek twitching uncontrollably, showing that she was in distress. “We are LaFaye,” she said in a whisper.

“LaFaye, you say,” the first voice repeated. A light appeared just below Joya’s knee and she noticed it was a tiny man who spoke. He was brown like the earth, and she wondered if he was not that color from lack of washing. Though he didn’t smell, he had the unmistakable air of one who was filthy. He looked like a wrinkled old man and stood no more than two feet, in a brown habit of the kind she’d seen bishops wear. The light came from a tiny torch that he held aloft as if to better study who he was talking to.

“Y-yes,” Joya stuttered, his presence doing nothing for her fear. She watched the small yellow light bobbing over his head, illuminating the gnarled features of his face as he scrutinized her. He appeared to be toothless, gnawing on his tongue as he appraised them critically, and one eye seemed bigger as he studied them from head to foot.

“Prove it,” he said, and other lights joined his from out of the fog-clotted darkness. Where had Tegaris gone? Joya wondered, now noticing that his light was nowhere in sight.

“How are we to prove it?” Angelica asked.

“If you are really of the LaFaye line, I’m sure that you can produce some feat of wyrd for us — do so!” The little man demanded, apparently not understanding just how impossible his request was.

“But the Well of Wyrding,” Joya protested. “Our wyrd could go horribly wrong and do something disastrous.”

“You have the protection of the gnomes for now,” the gnome before her said, apparently thinking her concern was not a good enough excuse for not doing what he demanded. “Do it.”

Joya closed her eyes, her breath becoming ragged and frightened. Now able to move, she held her shaking hands out before her, and in the center of her palms snapped a bright pink light several times, each time fizzling out. She tried to laugh it off nervously and took a few steadying breaths, looking as though she were whispering something to herself that none of them could hear.

She held her hands out again, more steady this time, and there glowed a slight light, pink and beautiful. It grew and grew, and before they knew it there was a little pink orb floating above them, casting light all around like a tiny sun.

The gnome nodded curtly and turned to the others. “You now,” he said to Angelica. “Do something,” the gnome waved his hands about as if he were showing her precisely what she should do.

“What if I don’t have any wyrd?” Angelica protested. The sensation of not being able to move was lifting from her now that the gnomes wanted something from her.

“You would lie to the gnomes?” he asked and Angelica had the distinct feeling that this was not something that should be done. She shook her head vigorously. “Then prove it!”