Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

How many old journals had she burned so far? And why did she stop in her reading and writing to touch Shade in silent stillness before continuing?

Chane rose in the dark as the only possible truth came to him.

Wynn could be doing only one thing with Shade—passing memories. Shade remembered everything once it settled in her strange mind. Wynn was not copying all that she had previously written into the new journal. She was copying encrypted symbols ... and then mentally sharing the contents of the old journals with Shade.

To his shame, he envied their closeness.

He flipped open the brown journal. There were newer, small notes she had made in the margins beside names like Sorhkafâré. One read, Omit anyone who might have lived during the war . She was actively working to hide information from the wrong eyes. But foremost in his mind was still the question: Why had she omitted him completely in her first round of recopied journals and the much-later ones that had not needed to be re-created? She had mentioned all vampires but him.

Chane returned to his first revelation that Wynn was hiding knowledge. Another realization changed everything, and his hands began to tremble. She had not been trying to blot him out of her life.

Wynn had been hiding ... protecting him.

And he could hear her coming back.

He could not risk her seeing him like this. He desperately wanted to keep the journals—especially the blue ones—to save a part of her for himself. But she had gone to great lengths to hide his existence, along with any possible information their enemies might acquire.

Wincing, Chane dropped the old journals into the fire and fled back into the shadows. He did not look back, as he could not bear to watch them burn.

Several nights later, past dusk, Chane watched Wynn and Ore-Locks climb higher up one of the foothills. Occasionally, they both used the ends of their staffs to pound the ground and listen for any hollow sounds echoing beneath.

Shade paced beside Wynn, sniffing dirt and rocks. Like Chane, she was a reluctant partner in this current task. The choice had been to either help or do nothing; the latter would have destroyed any illusions Wynn might still harbor that they wished for her success.

Until now, they had both tried to help despite their reservations. But Chane’s recent discoveries through Wynn’s journals did not make him any more bound to her mission. They made him only more determined to protect her, even from herself.

By this fourth night after stumbling upon the way station, they had found no further clues to a hidden entrance beneath the mountains. Their supplies were almost gone, and game was even scarcer here than along the ridges of the pass. There was nothing for Shade and him to hunt. Chane had been taking note of Wynn’s demeanor, watching for any growing hints of uncertainty.

It was time to move on.

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “We are wasting time.”

When Wynn looked down from her higher vantage point, he expected her to argue, but for the briefest instant, doubt crossed her pretty, dusty face, as if she partially agreed. And he knew he had her. He required only the tiniest crack in her armor.

“One more night,” she said, not sounding confident. “We’ll look for the rest of tonight, and if we don’t find anything, then tomorrow we’ll return to the pass and move into the mountain range.”

He could see the pain in her eyes as she spoke these words. Looking for a fallen mountain in a vast range was like seeking a single, special pebble in a rushing river. Shade looked up from her sniffing, swinging her head back and forth between Wynn and Chane.

“Do you want to waste another whole night looking for something that does not exist?” he challenged, crossing his arms.

This drove the doubt from Wynn’s face, and she stepped toward him.

“Chane, you are not making the—”

“The decisions?” he cut in. “Apparently, neither are you. We have wandered in the foothills, wasting nearly four nights.”

Her eyes widened. He rarely spoke to her like this, but he was not going to back down, not this time. Ore-Locks stopped and watched them both.

“So you think you found a way station?” Chane asked Ore-Locks. “Could it not be there for some other reason?”

Ore-Locks looked away. He never spoke to Chane anymore unless absolutely necessary.

“Perhaps it was built there as a rest stop for dwarves,” Chane went on, “or it was just a lone settlement placed well off the pass to remain hidden from foreign travelers.”

“Not likely,” Ore-Locks said. However, like Wynn, he appeared less than certain.

“So your people are the exception among all others ... and no dwarves would live any way other than the way you believe they should?”

No one answered, and Chane took a step closer to Wynn, softening his tone.

“It has taken so long to get this far, but there is nothing to be found here. It is time to move on.”

Shade huffed once in clear agreement. Wynn looked down at her and then closed her eyes.

Chane knew the crushing disappointment she must feel. They had lost the hope of a possible path leading them straight to the seatt, and now they were back to a blind search in the mountains.

Wynn opened her eyes again, looking to Ore-Locks.

“They’re right,” she said bitterly, sadly. “If we’re to find the seatt, we should head into the mountains now. Too much time has passed already.”

Chane waited for Ore-Locks to argue—and then he would handle the dwarf. But Ore-Locks only began descending the hill with a similar expression of defeat. His obsessive goal was to find the seatt, and they were making no progress here.

Shade gazed up at Chane in what appeared to be surprise, and then she trotted beside him back toward the wagon—as if rewarding him for this victory. Indeed, he felt as if he had just won an important battle. Wynn’s chances inside the range were almost nonexistent. In less than a moon, he might yet coerce her into giving up entirely.

The chances of this were certainly better now than they had been three moments ago.

Wynn drove the wagon down the pass for three more days before they completed traveling through the foothills and reached the base of the mountains. Her heart was heavy, and all along the way she’d never stopped looking for hints or clues to the elusive entrance Ore-Locks had placed in her mind.

If only it existed. If only she could find it.

Tonight, Shade lay beside her on the bench, and Chane and Ore-Locks sat in the back on opposite sides of the wagon bed, both looking forward. The base of the range’s first ridge loomed above them. In the night, Wynn could not see all the way to their tops, but Chane pointed ahead.

“The end of the pass,” he said. “We may have to leave the wagon behind.”

Wynn squinted, but he could see so much better in the dark than she could, at least from a distance. She’d known this moment was coming. They couldn’t take a wagon into the range, and, eventually, they might even have to abandon the horses. She knew firsthand the dangers of bringing horses onto narrow cliffs.

“Pull up over there,” Chane said, now pointing off to the left.

She sighed and pulled the wagon over. Chane jumped down to unharness the mare and the gelding. They would serve as packhorses now. Both were calm and gentle, and she hated the thought of eventually leaving them in the wilderness. She’d face that task when it arrived, as she had faced so many unpleasant tasks to get this far.

While Chane worked on the harness, Wynn climbed in the back with Shade to take down their makeshift tents, folding the canvas up with their blankets. If she packed things properly, the horses could still carry all the supplies that remained.