Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1) (29 page)

Linn watched his silhouette melt into the shadows. She sighed and went back to Jenk.

“You’ll be thanking me when we reach the Steps,” Linn said, trying to ignore the pointed look Jenk managed despite his delirium. “You’d have done the same.” And that quelled him.

Jenk struggled against it for a time, but he eventually succumbed to sleep, leaving Linn to her thoughts in the dark. She thought of the twisting pathways through the woods to the south and how much she missed them. She’d even take them chalk-full of Dark Kind over the maddening maze of tedium they found themselves in now.

She thought of the cave. No matter how hard she tried, however, she could not help her thoughts from turning toward home. Toward the waters of Last Lake, which would never ignore her in the dark and deep as the River F’Rust did. She thought of Iyana. Finally, she thought of Kole. Surely he had awoken by now to find her gone. She only hoped he had not been as foolish as she.

There was a dry snap that jolted Linn into a crouch, the long knife Nathen had left her held out horizontally in her hand. She did not flinch. She never did, eyes piercing the middle distance like few could match. Jenk stirred beside her but did not wake.

She exhaled, all relief as Nathen’s broad shoulders broke the black canvas. He kicked a dried tangle forward. At first, it looked like a bundle of branches clutched in his arms, but as he neared, Linn noted that the material was an odd mix of purple and blue. It was some sort of fungus.

“Think it’s safe to burn?” he asked, dropping the bundle. “Dried fast.” His bare chest was still slick from a mixture of water and sweat.

“We’ll find out. How did you get down there so fast?”

“Took a shortcut,” he said, and something in his tone made Linn look up from snapping the dried pieces into kindling.

“You didn’t,” she said, shocked. He smirked. “You rode the river down?”

“I’m a strong swimmer,” he said and she shook her head.

Nathen looked at Jenk.

“He looks like a corpse.”

Linn gave him a sharp glare and he held his hands up.

“Think he can get a spark going?”

“He’ll have to.”

Together, they lifted the Ember into a seated position. His eyelids fluttered but he gave no sign of waking. It struck home then just how depleted Jenk must have been. Linn wondered how she had not noticed it sooner. Her respect for him had already multiplied since setting out from Last Lake, but now it soared to new heights.

“Jenk. Jenk …”

Finally, the Ember woke with a start, eyes darting around as he attempted to orient himself. Linn took hold of his temples and looked him dead on. He settled.

“Ve’Ran,” he breathed.

“A spark, Jenk. We need a spark.”

She indicated the pile of scrap before them. It would burn quickly, but Nathen had gathered more than she would have thought possible. It had to be enough.

Jenk did not look entirely convinced, but he squeezed his eyes shut tight and leaned forward under his own power. For a spell, he was still as death, and then the veins stood out on his neck, their swelling forming ridgelines that snaked their slow way down his arms and tunneled like worms on the backs of his hands. His light hair moved as if stirred by a breeze only he could feel.

His eyes flashed opened, and Linn thought she caught a hint of bright amber before the blues returned. A spark took, igniting the cache in a flare that rendered Linn and Nathen blind and yelping like pups. After what felt like a searing eternity, Linn opened her eyes to a scene so at odds with the sudden violence of the burst that she nearly laughed.

Jenk sat cross-legged before the crackling flames, his eyes closed and his face a picture of serenity that bordered on communion. Judging by his own expression, Nathen must have been thinking the same thing.

“Thank you,” the Ember said, and though his voice was distant, it already sounded stronger, steadier.

“My pleasure,” Nathen said nonchalantly, scooting closer to the flames now that his eyes had adjusted.

Linn moved to join them, watching curiously as Jenk drank in the heat from the darkening coals that broke off from the pile.

“Will it be enough?” she asked, concerned at the rate at which the scrub was disintegrating. The fire was already losing its life.

“Plenty,” Jenk said, and the blaze flared up again before settling back down.

“You’re controlling it.”

“I can slow the flames,” Jenk said. “Get as much heat out of it as possible.”

They sat around the fire like children waiting for a tale. Linn had not been aware of the chill in her bones, but it evaporated and left her feeling warm for the first time in weeks. Her stomach growled as the scent of burning reminded her of food, and they split the last shreds of salted meat between them, softening it in the flowing river before setting to chew.

“Why did you both come?” Jenk asked, and Linn felt as taken aback as Nathen looked.

The Ember opened his eyes to regard them.

“I mean no offense,” he said. “But since we’ve some time to kill, I thought I’d know. I asked Baas the same thing before we set out. His reasons were quite simple: the Rivermen have no love for the Sages—any of them. He knew that playing any role in the death or surrender of one of them would plant him firmly in the lore of his people.”

Neither Linn nor Nathen spoke. Jenk sighed and continued.

“Kaya’s intentions were never verbalized, but I knew her better than most.”

Jenk’s expression changed, a shadow passing over his face. He swallowed.

“She sought to prove herself. To me, to you.” Linn rocked back, uncomfortable. “To everyone, I’d expect.”

He cleared his throat.

“Larren Holspahr set out under a sense of duty, I expect. I don’t know if he believed in the validity of our trek, but he certainly didn’t think we’d get far without him.”

“There’s irony,” Linn said, staring into the flames.

Nathen sighed and gripped his leggings so tight his knuckles went pale.

“My mother is sick,” he said, unable to meet their surprised eyes. “The waste is in her. She doesn’t have much time left and neither Ninyeva nor Iyana could help her much.”

“Iyana said she wouldn’t accept help,” Linn said, trying to keep the challenge out of her voice.

“That too,” Nathen said. “I’ve never believed in the White Crest, but she does. I’m not sure what I expected. That I’d find him, fall to my knees and beg his help. Now, I don’t feel much like begging. I don’t feel much like asking, to be honest.”

He looked up at them, face set and stern, a look that clashed with his youthful features.

“If he does live, then he abandoned us,” he said. “Or something much worse.”

Neither of them argued with him.

“There’s nothing wrong with hoping,” Jenk said.

“Plenty wrong with it,” Nathen said, but there was no fight in him. He stared back into the flames, which had sunk lower.

Linn reached out and took Nathen’s hand, turning a sympathetic smile on him. She was not her sister, but empathy was not exclusive to the Faeykin.

“There is no shame in what you’ve just said, Nathen,” she said. “I know it doesn’t seem like it. I know that I have a hard edge. But I believe in the White Crest.”

“Still?” he asked, eyes shining.

“I think,” she said uncertainly. “At least, I believe in what he was. I don’t truly know if Kole is right. I don’t know if he’s still up there. But if he is, I have to believe he’ll help us. I have to believe there’s a reason why he hasn’t.”

“This is the path we’ve chosen,” Jenk said and they turned to regard him. “No matter what waits at the end of it, we need to act together.”

They nodded and spoke no more. The echoing rush of the river soon regained dominance over the crackle of the fire as the Ember replenished himself with its dying. Linn laid down to rest on the hard stones, which, for once, were warm against her cheek. Soon enough, the others dozed as well.

Some time later, Linn woke and wiped the sleep from her eyes. There was a flicker of movement ahead and she froze, waiting for it to come back. After a time, it did, and she could not believe what she was seeing.

The firefly—green and pulsing—was the first living thing she had seen in the Deep Lands. Linn rose slowly and the light darted toward her. It was impossibly bright, and just when she was about to cup her hands around it, it shot back and vanished into the next sloping tunnel.

Linn followed.

A
s he stood under the unyielding orange stare of Creyath Mit’Ahn, Kole sought out the calm provided by his father’s steel-gray eyes. But Karin Reyna’s gaze was far off, looking through the fogged, torch lit glass of the west-facing window. His expression was unreadable, but Kole knew he was afraid—afraid of son joining mother.

Still, there was nothing to be done.

Kole bit back the sting as a pair of elderly smiths—a husband and wife who spent as much time arguing as they did fussing with the leather straps and brass fastenings—worked to adjust the black armor.

“Still, my dear,” the woman cooed as she worked to force the seams of his greaves under the shifting shoulder plates.

Kole was bare-chested under the armor at the smith’s request, and the gruff man pulled his hand back sharply when his knuckles brushed against the Ember’s skin. He shot Kole a glare and he responded with a shrug.

“He is a hot one,” Creyath said with a laugh by the door, his pearly whites glowing in the gloom.

The smith pointedly ignored the Second Keeper and stepped back to look Kole up and down. His nod, like everything else about the man, was curt, stiff and without warmth, but he seemed satisfied.

“By Man,” he said with an exaggerated eye roll. “Leave the boy be, Berta. Pull that shell any tighter and it’ll melt to him.”

Berta gave the final strap a sharp tug in response, cutting off Kole’s breath for a panicked moment before the invisible seams shifted to accommodate his lungs. He looked up to meet the penetrating twin gaze of the smiths. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder and studied their handiwork.

Truth be told, Kole did not see the need for armor, but the Merchant Council of Hearth now saw him as an investment, one to be protected.

The smiths grinned simultaneously, the only thing they had done together near as Kole could tell.

“That’ll do,” the man said.

“Aye,” his wife responded. “I’d like to see someone try to put a dent in that, Night Lord or Sage beside.”

“Well?” Karin asked, coming to stand beside him. “How does it feel?”

“Honestly,” Kole started, glancing sheepishly at the smiths, “It doesn’t feel like much.”

“That’s the point, boy,” the smith said. Give it a twist.

Kole did. At first, he doubted the armor would move, since it appeared as a solid piece of worked obsidian. As he rotated his hips and shoulders, however, the metal broke into myriad glinting scales and grooves to accommodate his form. He could feel the polished metal sliding across his skin, but there was no chafing. It was as if he wore a silk gown rather than a suit of armor.

“Brilliant,” Kole said, glancing down at the shoulder plates, which narrowed to blood-red tips. He still wore his thin traveling pants, but the smiths had fastened separate three-piece plates that ran from knee to instep. He tested a few lancing kicks and exhaled in satisfaction.

“Right, then,” Berta said, holding out her hand. “Onto the matter of payment.”

Creyath moved forward, his steps slow and halting. He deposited a mesh pouch into her hand.

“I trust you’ll have the decency to wait until we’ve left to count it.”

“It’s a small enough town,” she said with a wink and a wag of her finger.

The three men stole out onto the street, Kole marveling at the way his armor moved like a second skin. His twin blades rested comfortably across his back, freshly oiled by Talmir’s personal doctor. It was the Captain’s last favor to Kole before he made his way back to the gate.

Shifa barked and twined around his legs, starved for attention. She yearned to be back on the road with him, he knew, but Kole had decided the loyal hound had done enough. He would not take her to the peaks.

It was dark outside and the streets were largely empty in this section of town. The pale blue light of the moon was losing its battle with the growing legion of black clouds that now assailed the sky like a swath of drifting smoke. The sounds of battle could not be heard, but Kole could see the red-orange halo hanging to the west, the light of the braziers and the burning pitch below giving the impression of a sun not yet risen.

Creyath had moved off toward a street cook, the steam rising from a grill laden with fresh vegetables from the window gardens above, leaving father and son in the middle of the street.

“Amazing, isn’t?” Karin asked. “Even in the midst of all this, our people carry on.”

Kole nodded and the silence resumed.

“I’ll make it to the peaks, father,” he said. “I’ll find out what happened.”

“Your mother made it, Kole,” Karin said. “It’s the making it back you need concern yourself with.”

Kole did not turn to face his father. He steeled himself.

“Just try to make sure I have something left to come back to.”