Rachel Lee - Shadows of Destiny

Before Tess could question her, the woman had vanished back into the shadows. For a second or two, she could hear the quiet murmur of the voice again.

Then she was alone in the clearing with only the white wolf.

He nudged her hand with his cool, damp nose and she blinked.

And gasped. For she no longer stood in the clearing at all, nor was it any longer dark.

Dawn was breaking over the mountains to the east, wreathed in red and pink and orange, the globe of the sun not yet visible.

Nor was she in her bed. She stood halfway between Anahar and the compound housing the Bozandari prisoners of war.

The frigid morning air made her cheeks sting, but she was still surprisingly warm. Looking down at herself, she saw that she had dressed in her fine white woolens and boots, with her cloak about her shoulders. Had she done that in her sleep?

A sound behind her made her swing sharply around, and she gasped as she saw the wolf was still with her.

What was going on? Had she been dreaming? Or had she been awake in some netherworld? Had long-dead Ilduin really spoken to her?

Or was she simply losing her mind?

But then the wolf came toward her and shoved his big, soft head beneath her hand. Instinctively she scratched him behind the ears, and marveled at how silky his coat felt.

She must have been sleepwalking, she thought. Thank goodness she had dressed before setting out from Anahar. Else she would be frozen and dead right now, it was that cold.

She was about to return to the city on the hillside when the wolf tipped back his head and howled. It was a beautiful sound, music unto itself.

And it was answered. Tess felt her scalp prickle as wolves howled back from the awkward, hardy trees that made life for themselves in the green desert that was the Anari lands. The sound was eerie, as eerie as anything she had ever heard. There must have been dozens of them.

But then they emerged from the trees, still howling, a harmony among their voices that reverberated until it sounded as if they numbered in the several dozens. But there were only seven more of them, all as white as the one that stood beneath her hand.

She should have been terrified. She should have fled. She should have tried to call on her powers for protection. Instead she remained rooted to the spot as the wolf pack ran toward her, their yellow eyes bright, mouths relaxed in smiles, as if they were coming home.

When they reached her, their howling stopped and they began to make quiet whimpers and whines as they swirled around her legs, sniffing her as if to learn her. Then, as if by silent order, all seven sat on their haunches and looked up at her.

She spoke, not knowing what else to do. “What do you want?”

The only answer she received was from the pack leader. His head moved from beneath her hand so that he could tug at her robe with his mouth.

He pulled her gently.

Toward the prison compound.

And all the others followed, as if they were tamed beasts at her beck and call. But she knew otherwise, and wondered what it all meant.

Ras Lutte, formerly overmark of the Bozandari army, approached his ruler slowly, as if hoping to avoid notice. He had news to bring, and bring it he must, for such was his duty. But he knew the meaning of the dour visage upon the throne, a face that seemed to bear the weight of the gods themselves upon its features. Lutte was all too familiar with that expression. It had been months, it seemed, since his ruler had borne any other.

Yet the ruler was still an astonishingly beautiful man, fair of complexion, golden of hair, blue of eye. To Lutte and others, it seemed he might even be the spawn of the gods, for never had a man so handsome and charismatic ever been seen before.

Until this brooding had begun.

But at least no one died from these silent broodings.

“My lord,” Lutte finally said, after placing his right fist to his heart and bowing at the waist. “I pray that I disturb thee not, yet the woman has spoken.”

The man on the throne looked up slowly, as if all of his strength were required simply to lift his head. Lutte could not be certain, but he thought he saw tears in his ruler’s eyes. Immediately, Lutte lowered his gaze to the floor. Such things were not to be seen.

“What is it, Overmark?” the ruler asked, each word seeming to wend its way from the bottom of a deep cavern.

“The Weaver summons the wolves, my lord. Soon, the woman says, the Enemy host will march.”

The man’s eyes closed for a moment, then he nodded. “Just as it was foretold.”

Lutte knew little of prophecy and trusted less than he knew. He was loathe even to trust the woman who sat in her room like the shell of a human being, hardly taking even food or drink, her body nearly as desiccated in life as any Lutte had seen in death.

He was a man of science and mathematics, the science and mathematics of war. Born into the Bozandari peerage, trained in the Academy of War, tested in battle, proved in a half-dozen campaigns. His exile after an affair with a topmark’s wife had not changed his nature. It was possible to take the soldier out of the army, but never to take the army out of the soldier. Now he had found another army, and he had taken to the task of training the ragged band of outlaws and exiles into a smoothly functioning fist to be wielded at his will.

But not his will. The will of his ruler. And the will of his ruler was guided by prophecy and the mumblings of the woman. It was, Lutte thought, a shaky foundation upon which to base a campaign. But he had learned loyalty in the academy, and his personal dalliances aside, his professional loyalty was a matter of pride.

He relayed the woman’s words as if they were those of the most accomplished spy, not because he trusted her or her ramblings, but because it was his duty to do so.

“If this is so,” Lutte said, “then our agents in Bozandar must be at their task. Surely Bozandar can crush the slave people and end this rebellion.”

“Bozandar will not be our ally,” the ruler said. “In the end, it will come to us and us alone. It will come to me. For only I can slay my brother.”

Again he is on about his brother, Lutte thought. As if the rest of the world were mere pawns in this sibling rivalry. Lutte had heard the whispers, that his ruler was in fact the second son of the Firstborn King, but he did not believe them. The children of the Firstborn were long dead, if ever they had existed. Lutte needed no ancient good or evil to empower him. The evil of the human heart more than sufficed to afflict the world. And only the good of the human heart could bring it comfort. The rest were tales, legends, myths told to fortify the sheep against the hardness of life, and make the sheep compliant within it.

“Is there anything else?” the ruler asked.

“No, my lord.”

“Then go,” the ruler said. “Tend to your numbers and your geometries. And pray that you never stand on a field where straight lines bend and twice two is not four.”

He did not read my mind, Lutte thought as he bowed and turned to leave. His face had betrayed his skepticism, and his ruler knew of his reputation. It was nothing more.

What a pity, Ardred thought as Lutte left. What a pity that such a talented young mind should lack the most essential of all knowledge: the numbering of the gods, the geometry of the soul.

Lutte was a good soldier, but poor counsel. What he lacked, Ardred most needed. For no man can make war upon his brother with lightness of heart, whatever their past. Once, Ardred had laid siege to Annuvil. Now Annuvil would come to lay siege to Ardred.

Lutte thought he knew what danger lay when two men loved a woman, for such had been his crime. But he knew nothing at all.

Ardred must kill his brother. The world could not be stitched back together until Annuvil was dead. Only then would the glory and true power return.