C
hapter Twenty-Eight
Eolyn, Corey, and Renate rode
south over open fields for hours. Only when the gray light of predawn filtered into the sky did Corey slow their pace. He guided them toward a thick stand of trees and turned their path toward the east. As rays of sun began to penetrate the green canopy, Corey bade Eolyn and Renate to dismount by a small brook, so their horses might rest.
Muscles stiff with exhaustion, Eolyn led her horse to the stream. She dropped to her knees, refreshed her face with cool water, and wet her parched lips. Closing her eyes, she inhaled the rich aromas of the forest, of wet loam, fallen nuts, and crushed leaves. Her heart ached for the South Woods, for its beauty and peace, its safety and power.
Withdrawing from the stream, she took a weary seat beside Renate on one of the large, smooth stones. Only Mage Corey remained restless. His feet marked agitated paths through the leaf litter. His face reddened with anger. Swearing harshly, he hurled a shaft of bright flame at a nearby boulder, splitting it in two.
“Do you take me for a fool?” He turned on Eolyn. “A few
tricks
from your grandmother? You put us all at risk! The entire Circle could have perished—may still perish—thanks to your lies and your deceit!”
“That is enough, Corey!” Renate shot back. “You have no right to attack her like that! Did you ever give her reason to trust you? Did you ever tell her who we really are? What we really do? Even if you had, what evidence would you have offered to support your story? What proof could you have given to convince her you were not just another clever spy of Tzeremond? She did exactly what a woman of her power needs to do to survive in this kingdom. Indeed, she did exactly what you would have told her to do, had you known the truth.
She trusted no one
.”
Eolyn looked up at the mistress. “You told him nothing?”
“No,” replied Renate. “I did not reveal your secret, Sarah. I am not the scared girl I was twenty years ago. I know now how to protect my own, although until this moment I have had none of my own to protect.”
“Tell me what?” Corey demanded. “What else did you not tell me?”
Renate regarded him with a cool gaze. “That question is for Sarah to answer, if she so chooses.”
Corey drew a deep breath and exhaled in resignation. His temper faded, though his eyes remained weary with frustration.
He approached them, took a seat facing Eolyn, and said quietly, “I hope by now you understand I mean you no harm. Please tell me who you are.”
Tears spilled unbidden onto her cheeks. Eolyn wiped them away, frustrated by the evidence of her vulnerability. “My true name is Eolyn. When I was a child, my family perished during a raid of the King’s men on my village. I fled into the South Woods, where an elder by the name of Ghemena took me in and cared for me. She trained me in the ways of the Old Orders and anointed me High Maga before passing into the Afterlife.”
“Ghemena?” Renate’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Do you mean Ghemena of Berlingen?”
“She spoke often of Berlingen, yes.”
“But that abbey was destroyed,” the mistress objected. “They said everyone perished. No one survived!”
“Ghemena escaped, aided by a nephew who happened to be with her at the time.”
“So, you are a High Maga.” Corey’s tone hung between doubt and hope.
“Trained by one of the greatest Doyennes of my generation,” Renate said.
“Who would have thought such a discovery still possible?” Corey asked.
“You speak of me as if I’m a relic,” Eolyn said.
“You are,” mage and mistress replied in unison.
A smile broke through Corey’s weary expression. Laughter crept into his voice, growing in intensity until it broke full over the forest glade. “Imagine, Renate! I snuck a High Maga into the King’s City, right under Tzeremond’s nose! I introduced her to half the mages in the kingdom, and no one detected her! That old wizard must be out of his skin with fury! You should have seen his face when the King set her free.”
Corey’s laughter stopped short, and his shoulders tensed.
In a sudden, impatient move he rose and started pacing again. “I thought we had lost you when I saw you on the floor of the throne room. I thought he had possessed your magic and left you for dead.”
“Possessed my magic?” This phrase made no sense to Eolyn.
“Tzeremond’s mages know how to separate magic from a maga’s spirit and claim it for their own,” explained Renate. “A perverse and violent practice that arose during the purges.”
That was what I sensed
, Eolyn realized. The malevolent hunger she felt in his presence, the attempt to invoke hallucinations through
Ahmad-melan
, the use of her own name to break her.
By the Gods, what has he become?
“What I don’t understand is why he set you free.” Corey said. “What counter spell did you use to stop him?”
“No spell.” Her heart contracted painfully. “I have no spell against what he wanted to do. But something happened…I’m not sure what. I recognized him, and everything changed.”
“You
recognized
him?” Corey’s impatience flared again. “What kind of maga’s riddle is that? Of course you recognized him, he is the King!”
Eolyn’s head sank into her arms, not because Corey’s challenge distressed her, but because in that moment she realized Achim…No, Akmael, the Mage King, had kept her mask. With but a hair or an eyelash or even her essence extracted from its fabric, he could find her.
Or worse.
“Corey, I think we can do without your sarcasm and even suspend the questions for at least one day,” Renate admonished. “Let her rest for pity’s sake. She’s been through enough.”
But Corey did not move.
Eolyn kept her face hidden, but she felt the intensity of his gaze as he worked through some unspoken question. Just as she thought a new barrage of words would take shape on his lips, the mage turned abruptly away. After a few moments, the shifting of his footsteps against the leaf litter ceased. She heard the soft whisper of his cloak as it fell to the forest floor.
“Come, Maga Eolyn.”
She raised her tear-stained face.
Mage Corey stood with his hand extended toward her. Shafts of morning light painted his hair in soft shades of gold.
“You must rest,” he said. “We will take but an hour here. Renate and I will wake you when it is time to continue.”
Relieved, Eolyn accepted his invitation and laid her aching limbs against the soft folds of his cloak. The musk of leaf litter wafted up through the fabric. Though grateful to lie down, Eolyn was certain she would not sleep for a moment.
Then Mage Corey knelt close and set his hand upon her forehead in a firm yet gentle hold. At his touch, the anxieties that plagued Eolyn fled into nothingness. She sank at once into a deep and dreamless slumber.
They traveled under the cover of forest whenever they could and by night when they could not. No path marked their circuitous route, yet Corey appeared to know it well. The few times his memory failed, or some change in a landmark confused him, he consulted the trees or passing animals.
Eolyn made no inquiries as to their destination. Emptied of all sense of purpose after her disillusion with Akmael, she wrapped herself in a deep need to leave the decisions to someone else. The turning of their path under the summer sun indicated they progressed roughly in the direction of Selen. In time, encounters with open fields ceased and they continued through narrow corridors between ancient trees.
One afternoon, they arrived at a small stand of birch. Corey bade his companions to halt. Sunlight filtered through shifting branches, illuminating scattered patches of forest herbs. Insects chirped softly. A faint scent of open fires floated on the wind.
After a few moments, Eolyn detected the soothing call of the firhawk, a skilled imitation that few would recognize as human-made.
“They have seen us,” Corey said. “It is safe to proceed.”
The three of them continued in silence, crossing two low ridges before coming to a large flat area. Here, the underbrush had been cleared away and replaced by clusters of tents. A village of cloth-draped poles and open hearths stretched so far that Eolyn could not determine its limits.
As they approached, men and women paused in their routines and emerged from the dwellings. Armed with bows, knives, axes, and swords, they gave an intimidating display of arms that might have turned many away. Mage Corey, however, dismounted and engaged in hearty greetings with them. Renate followed and was embraced as their sister.
Disoriented by the mass of strangers, Eolyn remained on her steed until a wisp of memory startled her. Searching the crowd, she noted a movement among the tents, a parting of bodies that indicated the approach of a person of importance.
In an instant, she slipped off her horse. Heart racing, Eolyn pushed impatiently past numerous surprised faces, breaking through the barrier of bodies until at last she stood before a man who stopped as if a wall had been thrown into his path.
His face was long and aged before its time. A deep scar stretched down the length of his cheek, disappearing into his auburn beard. He watched Eolyn with the clear green gaze of their mother, his expression hovering between doubt and astonishment.
“Eolyn?” he whispered.
“Ernan,” she replied in disbelief.
A murmur rippled through the crowd, bringing conversations to a halt and evoking curious gazes. Eolyn held steadfast, afraid any movement might break this illusion.
It was Ernan who reached out first. He touched her cheek, and then threw his arms around her, crushing Eolyn to his chest. He kissed her face over and over, his eyes damp with tears. His aroma, though dominated by aggression and bloodshed, retained nuances of Eolyn’s deepest and dearest memories: of dark and fertile earth, of pumpkins in the fall and apple blossoms in the spring, of adventures with their mother in the South Woods, of the embrace of their father at sunset.
All the best moments of their shared childhood resurfaced in one miraculous moment. Eolyn cried out for joy and wrapped her arms tight around her brother, who had returned from the dead.
Ernan took Eolyn’s hand and placed one arm over her shoulder. Maintaining this protective embrace, he led his sister to his tent.
While Ernan set out dark bread, Berenben cheese, and fresh ale, Eolyn observed his large collection of weapons. She found spears, swords, and knives of all shapes and sizes. They were adorned with feathers, tassels, jewels and strange symbols. Their blades sang with voices as fresh and sharp as the first ice of winter.
“Where did you get all this?” she asked in wonder.
“I have traveled far, learning the arts of war in foreign lands. This collection is but one of the many fruits of my studies.”
Eolyn ran her hands over the long, smooth shafts of his spears and the intricately worked surfaces of his shields. Then she turned to study her brother.
War had drawn a brutal map across his face. Indeed, the boy she once knew was all but gone. She lifted her hand to touch his scar. Ernan smiled and caught her fingers in his rough grip before pressing them to his lips.
“You have grown into a beautiful woman, dear Sister.”
“I cannot believe you are standing before me,” she exclaimed. “All this time I thought you were dead! I
buried
you, Ernan.”
“Buried me?” The thought seemed to amuse him.
“When I left the forest, I passed what was left of our village. I found the remains of a child in the cellar of our home. I thought it was you. I put him to rest where we used to harvest pumpkins.”
“A child in the cellar?” His lips compressed in a frown.
“Perhaps it was one of our friends.”
“Gavin, maybe.”
“Or Dels.” Images of their childhood companions returned as if everything had happened only yesterday. Eolyn saw Gavin’s shy smile and freckled face. She heard Dels shouting across the field about the flipp toad he had just caught by the brook. As a girl, Eolyn wasn’t supposed to like toads, but Dels always caught the biggest and ugliest, and Eolyn could never resist his call to see them.
“Perhaps he came to the house just as the Riders set upon the village,” Ernan said. “Father must have hidden him in the cellar before running off to look for you and me.”
“But what happened to you? That dark hole you pushed me into was awful! I saw
everything
just as if I were in the middle of it.” For the first time it occurred to her that Kaie must have left a spell on that place, though what invocation might have allowed such visions she could not imagine. “It seemed impossible that you could have survived. Then night fell and morning came, and you did not return.”
Ernan’s face clouded. “I am sorry, Eolyn. I never made it back to the village. I had almost cleared the woods when a stranger caught me and kept me from advancing further. The Gods gave him inhuman strength, for I struggled like a wild animal. Yet he subdued me, bound me with a rope, and hauled me up a tree. He stuffed me into a hollow and kept me there until it ended. From that high perch we were invisible to the King’s men, but I saw what they did. The Riders slaughtered everyone, men, women, and children. They set fire to all the homes. They slew our father as he retreated toward the woods, and our father, Eolyn…He could wield a sword. Did you know that?”