David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

Kindren frowned. “What if this ends up being our home permanently?”

“It won’t,” she replied in defiance. “It never will be. We’re going home.”

“But Aully…”

She spun around on him. “Don’t ‘ but Aully ’ me. We’ve talked about this. We belong in Stonewood or Dezerea, with our own people. Not here.” She huffed from her nose. “And besides, they’ll never accept us. We’ve been here for months, and we’re still outsiders. That will never change.”

“Aully,” Kindren said, “I know you want to go home. I do too. I want to see my parents again; I still love them in spite of their betrayal. I want to walk through the palace and marvel at the paintings of Lords past. I want to explore the crypts and be amazed by history. But that might never happen, and it’d be foolish of me to refuse to accept that possibility.”

“So you’re giving up?”

“No, not giving up, just being realistic.”

Aully pulled away from him, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ll die if I never go back. I’d rather rot in the ground than spend the rest of my life here.”

“You don’t mean that,” Kindren said. “Please, say you don’t mean that.”

“What if I do ?”

He dropped his arms, letting them dangle there. He looked so sad in that moment, more a little boy than an elf on the verge of manhood. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his drab, dirt-smeared breeches.

“If that’s the case,” he said, “then I don’t know you like I thought I did.”

With that he walked away, his bare feet kicking up sod as he scuffed them against the grass.

“Kindren, don’t go,” she called out after him. “I’m sorry-I was being silly. Please come back.”

“I think you need some time to think about what’s important,” he said without turning around.

She heard snickers from beside her and glanced at the six elves sitting on a log beside the cookfire, roasting cubed pork and shallots at the end of a skewer. They pointedly turned their gazes away from her, focusing instead on their mid-morning meal.

Her mother’s cabin stood behind the cookfire. Ki-Nan, Bardiya’s friend and one of the few in Ang other than the kindhearted giant who treated them as peers, had assisted in building the dwelling, along with the eight other houses for the thirty-two elves who had fled Dezerea after the occupation by Neyvar Ruven and the Quellan elves from the east. If not for Ceredon, we would all be dead, she thought. The Neyvar’s son had assisted in their escape, a sure death sentence should his father discover his betrayal. Closing her eyes, she uttered a silent prayer to Celestia for his safety.

When done, she looked around her. There was no sign of Lady Audrianna among her people. Hardly surprising. Her mother rarely left the bunker she and her daughter shared; not for the past month, not since she’d heard the horrible news…

Aully crept up the steps and into the cabin, guilt eating away at her. The interior of the cabin was sweltering, and it reeked. She wished the butterflies she’d felt only moments before would return, but Kindren had walked away from her and it was all her fault. She and her stubbornness had struck again.

Her mother lay atop her hay-filled mattress, curled into a ball beneath a thin sheet. Aully sat beside her and shook her gently, but she only groaned in reply. Tears formed in Aully’s eyes and poured down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” she moaned, trying to wedge her head into the crook of her mother’s arm. Lady Audrianna smelled like she hadn’t bathed for days, which she most likely had not.

Guilt compounded guilt. Audrianna’s condition was all because of her. For a long time she’d kept the death of her sister, Brienna, a secret, thinking her mother needed at least the illusion of comfort, the image of Brienna safe in the arms of her lover, Jacob Eveningstar. But finally Aully could not stand the weight of it anymore, and she’d blurted out the truth about the vision she’d seen as she and her mother sat around a fire one night.

After that night, Audrianna Meln, a woman who’d helped lead an entire realm, had become nothing but a shell. She had even taken to uttering a name in yearning that Aully had rarely heard on her lips-Carskel, the brother she had never met. She had heard stories about how he’d disgraced the family years before and been banished from Stonewood, but no one had told her why. Even Brienna had never mentioned him, and Brienna talked about everybody .

Audrianna must truly feel lost to reach toward that name for comfort.

Aully climbed into the bed, ignoring her mother’s stench, and scooted beneath the covers. The heat coming off Lady Audrianna was intense, as if she had been running from demons in her sleep. It made sweat bead up all over Aully’s body, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was comfort, even if she didn’t deserve it.

It was then Audrianna’s arm swept around her shoulder, pulling her in. Aully’s tears came even harder.

“Shush, child,” her mother’s groggy voice whispered in her ear. “All is good now. Just be still.”

Aully did as she was told, and a few minutes later, she heard her mother snoring once more.

Restlessness overtook her. When she was sure her mother was sleeping soundly, Aully slipped out from under her arm and walked to the door of the cabin. She dutifully wiped the tears from her eyes with her drab, loose-fitting muslin blouse. She needed to look presentable when she reentered the world.

She opened the door to find Kindren standing there, his arm propped against the side of the cabin. He stared at her, eyes squinting.

“I didn’t mean to…”

She collapsed into his arms before he could finish, her tears running anew. He held her, patting her back, running his fingers through her hair, but still the tears came.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

“I know. I’m sorry, too.”

Aully sniffled and said, “I miss them all, Kindren, and they’re never coming back. I’m just scared, and want to go home.”

“I know, my love, I know,” he said, forehead pressed against hers. “One day we’ll go home, I promise you. I don’t care how many years it takes, or what we have to do. But we’ll go home. We’ll do it together.”

Wind blew past Ceredon’s ears as he sprinted through the forest on the northern boundary of Dezerea. His keen vision allowed him to see in the near darkness brought on by the waning moon, to recognize the maze of trees standing in his way. He easily raced around them, creating a looping trail through the woods. He held the grip of his khandar tightly, the sword virtually weightless as adrenaline took over, propelling his legs forward even faster.

Voices shouted in alarm up ahead, and he steered his path toward them. He heard steel clash against steel and the whoosh of arrows cutting through the leafy canopy. One nearly clipped his shoulder when he took a sharp turn, the shaft embedding into a nearby tree.

A dense thatch of tangled underbrush appeared before him, and he leapt over the protruding branches and barbs just as another pair of arrows flew overhead. He kept his eyes on the trees while he flipped his khandar into his opposite hand and searched the ground blindly. His fingertips found a group of jagged rocks the size of his palm, and he began hurling them into the canopy, one by one, with all his might. Someone yelped in surprise, and the barrage of arrows stopped for a blessed moment. He took his opening, pursuing the sounds of conflict once more.

The sounds grew louder, and then he saw them-six elves dancing through the forest, three pressing, three retreating. Those in retreat were Dezren, members of the rebellion that had formed in the shadows to resist the occupation of their city and the capture of Lord and Lady Thyne. Ceredon could tell they were quickly tiring. Their parries were languid, their steps stumbling. Soon they would succumb to the greater strength and skill of their assailants.