Keith Baker - The Gates of Night

“This is insane,” Daine said, reaching out and taking her hand. “Lei, I’m sorry. I’m not good with words. None of this has come out the way I want. You’re not a monster. And that’s just it. You’re not … you’re not warforged. You’re human. This woman is playing games with you, like Lakashtai did with me.”

“No, Daine,” Lei said. “Someone’s playing a game with me, but it’s not Thelania. You heard that serpent. I said that I was born in my mother’s womb, and it told me I was wrong. And it showed me the truth.”

“It showed you something,” Daine said. “How do you know it was true?”

“I just do,” Lei said. “It all adds up. That sahuagin, Thaask. Harmattan. The visions from the river. That time I almost died … I could feel my wand of healing, even while I lay dying. I should have been unconscious, but somehow I activated the wand. I brought myself back.”

“You don’t know that.”

Lei looked at her hand. Her little finger, removed by Harmattan in the jungles of Xen’drik. “Give me your dagger,” she said.

“What?”

She reached out and pulled Daine’s dagger from his belt. Before he could stop her, she drew the edge across her palm.

Blood welled from the wound. “See,” Daine said. “Blood. You’re-”

Once again, Lei shut out the sights and sounds around her. This time it wasn’t Pierce she was looking for. This time she looked within. Once she’d had a dream of her mother, in what she now knew to be the hidden workshop in Blacklion. Aleisa had stood over her, studying Lei and comparing her to a pattern she held in her hand. Now Lei reached out for that pattern …

And she found it.

It was like no lifeweb she’d ever seen before. The warforged contained matter in the form of wood and roots, but they were inanimate objects given life through magic. This pattern … the body was flesh and blood, but the magic was still there, spread through every vein and every muscle.

How did this begin? she wondered. I was a child. I grew within the house. Was I born? Or did they make me from raw matter? She remembered the words of her mother, in the final moments of her river-spawned vision: Let my blood flow into you once more .

She studied the pattern more closely. There! It was so small she could hardly see it, but there was the cut on her palm. Concentrating, she sought to restore the design to purity. Repairing such minor damage to Pierce would have been the work of a moment. This was a struggle. The web was stranger than anything she’d every dealt with. Yet slowly, ever so slowly, it came together.

She opened her eyes. “… bleeding,” Daine was saying.

The cut was gone, with only a few drops of blood on her palm to show that she’d ever been injured.

“Lei,” Pierce said. “How did you do that?”

“It’s all true,” she said. “I’m not human.”

The words felt empty. Her anger had faded away, and all she felt was exhaustion. She fell to her knees, wildflowers brushing against her chest.

“I don’t care.” Daine dropped to the ground next to her, turned her chin to face him. “Warforged, human, dragonmarked or not … I don’t care if you’re a goblin, Lei. I doesn’t matter what you are. I only care about who you are.” His hands were on her shoulders. “I love you, Lei.”

She kissed him, and in that moment, he was the world. When they broke apart, she felt tears welling. “I don’t know what this means,” she said.

“We’ll find out together,” Daine replied.

She nodded, and the tears flowed freely. She looked up at Pierce and held out her hand. The warforged pulled her to her feet. “Pierce, I don’t know what to say.”

“Nothing need be said. Daine is correct. It seems we both have mysteries to unravel. Whatever the future holds, I will be by your side.”

Lei nodded, wiping at her cheeks. “Thank you, brother,” she said to Pierce. She turned to Daine, and the words of the dryad came back to her. You have life. You have love, if you have the courage to seize it .

“This is very touching, but the future won’t hold much of anything if you all stand here blubbering,” Kin said. “The bier is just beyond the hill. Lords and ladies, do you think you can contain your emotions until you’ve saved your world?”

Lei ignored the guide, her gaze still on Daine. He was smiling, and there was a joy in his eyes she’d never seen before. “Daine …” she said.

“Hush,” he said, taking her hand and leading Lei to her horse. “There’ll be time for us later. Right now, Riedra awaits.”

For the first time that day, Lei felt as if her burdens were truly lifted. Yet even as her heart soared, a memory rose to the surface, sending a chill through her mind. Her father, deep in the heart of Blacklion.

She is the most dangerous thing we have ever created .

What did he mean?

Xu’sasar hated riding.

She had seen horses before. The outlanders who came to plunder her homeland usually brought these creatures as mounts or beasts of burden, and she knew from tales that horses ran wild in other parts of Xen’drik. Xu’sasar was naturally fleet of foot, and when she stalked explorers the magic of the spirits allowed her to match the speed of the outlander mounts. But these faerie horses of Thelanis were another matter. This came as no surprise. These were surely spirits of speed, the inspiration for the mortal creatures she had encountered in the past, and she could hardly expect to keep pace on foot.

Fortunately for Xu’sasar, her horse was both friendly and responsive. He seemed to know the path, and all Xu’sasar needed to do was to hold on. She’d tried talking to the horse, but if it had the power of speech it chose not to speak with her, and she was left alone with her thoughts.

At the moment, those thoughts were gloomy. She did not understand this interaction between Daine, Pierce, and Lei. All Xu’sasar knew was that it didn’t involve her in any way, and that there was now a stronger bond between Lei and Daine. This was made worse by the knowledge that she would not be able to join Daine in this struggle against the forces of darkness. Here was an epic conflict, a chance to battle spirits of legend, and she was left to watch others sleep. Alone.

As her horse trotted across the meadow, Xu’sasar took a second look at the amulet she had been given as a gift. It was a locket made from pale silver, bound to a wide strip of black leather. A symbol was carved on the face of the amulet, but it held no meaning for her. Opening the locket, she found a shard of chitin, a piece of a scorpion’s shell. When she wrapped the band around her neck, she could feel a tingle along her skin. Surely the amulet was a gift from Vulkoor, passed down to this Queen of Dusk. Xu’sasar wore little armor, relying on her speed and her vambraces to deflect attacks. If this amulet gave her skin some of the strength of the scorpion’s shell, that was a blessing indeed. And with the Tooth of the Wanderer in her hand, she had been given sword and shield. She was prepared for the challenges that lay ahead-yet it seemed that she was to be denied the chance to fight in the greatest battle of all.

Perhaps luck would be with her. Perhaps an army would strike while the others slept.

She turned her attention to Kin. The fey envoy troubled her. For all that he had human teeth, his smile reminded Xu’sasar of the innkeeper Ferric. Xu’sasar was a child of the natural world, and there was something fundamentally unnatural about Kin. His features were handsome enough, but looking at him, she was certain that another face lay beneath the warm mask.

“There it is,” Kin said. “The Bier of the Sleeper.”