“This is but a dream. How can I know this?”
“We know it.” She floated away from him, spreading her arms as more people appeared out of the surrounding blackness, forming a circle around them. They were mostly strangers but he recognised some. The sister from the Seventh Order who had conspired with Alucius in Varinshold. Marken was there too, smiling grimly behind his beard, and Aspect Grealin, still fat even here . . . And one other.
Caenis wore the garb of a brother of the Sixth Order, even though he had died Aspect of the Seventh. “Brother,” Vaelin said, reaching out to him but Caenis only smiled and inclined his head in fond recognition.
“We who lingered when you drew him from the Beyond,” Dahrena said. “It is not just his will that can bind us there. We spent our remaining strength in crafting this vision. It was all we had left to give.”
He saw the circle of souls fading, drifting into darkness, Caenis the last to go, his hand raised in reluctant farewell before the dark claimed it.
“So you are truly gone now?” he asked Dahrena. “Your souls vanished forever?”
“Soul is memory,” she told him, pressing herself to him again, arms enfolding his head. “You are my Beyond now, Vaelin. You and all those I loved, even those I fought. For me to endure, so must you.”
She drew back, hands gripping his face. “Remember, a plague like the Red Hand. And none who caught the Red Hand and lived ever caught it again. And now, you really must wake up.”
? ? ?
He awoke to raised voices. Lonak voices, angry and aggravatingly loud. He groaned as he rolled upright, his fingers instinctively exploring the growing lump on the back of his head. The voices stopped and he looked up to see Kiral and Alturk retreating from one another, the Tahlessa sparing him a reproving glance before moving to stand in front of the Ally’s slumped form. He seemed to be unconscious, head lolling forward as a trickle of blood fell from a gash on his forehead.
Orven stood close to Vaelin, his guardsmen all around, glaring at the assembled Sentar on the other side of the clearing. He discerned it had been but moments since Alturk had clubbed him senseless. Vaelin extended a hand to Orven, who obligingly hauled him upright. He walked to Alturk and gave a shallow bow. “My thanks, Tahlessa. Lord Orven, break camp. We still have a long way to go.”
? ? ?
More towns appeared along the course of the road the farther south they went. They were usually sprawling places, having long outgrown the protective walls of the pre-Imperial age. Most had clearly suffered riot and rebellion, a few were little more than blackened ruins, and fewer still had contrived to remain intact by virtue of newly raised walls and barricades, often held by armed townsfolk happy to launch arrows at strangers who ventured too close. Vaelin avoided them all, having no inclination to embroilment in unnecessary battle, though the Sentar often chafed at the need to suffer an unanswered challenge.
The Ally now rode at the rear of the column, his bruised and partially remoulded features bland and cheerful as ever. Orven’s guards had been given stern instructions to gag him if he attempted to speak again, but he had maintained a continual silence since waking from the beating. Kiral stared at him constantly, hands often bunching on her reins and Vaelin knew she was resisting the impulse to reach for her bow. The song’s guidance is rarely mistaken, he knew, missing his lost gift more keenly than ever. But Dahrena’s vision had held no desire for the Ally’s immediate death, and no inclination he was on the wrong path.
A line of red appeared on the horizon five days later, growing as they drew closer until they paused amidst a vast array of redflower fields and, in the hazy distance, the tall towers of a marble city.
“Volar,” Lorkan breathed at Vaelin’s side, shaking his head in unabashed wonder. “I truly never thought to see it.”
Vaelin called for Lord Orven and pointed to the west and east. “Send out your scouts, we need word of the queen’s whereabouts. We’ll make camp here . . .”
“You don’t have time!”
Vaelin turned to see the Ally regarding him with cold intent, all vestige of humour vanished from his still misshapen features. The guards on either side moved closer to fulfil their orders but Vaelin waved them back, trotting Scar closer, meeting the Ally’s glare. “Why?”
“My servant plays with your sister in the arena as we speak. Or rather, that perverted bitch you call your sister. Delay further, and I suspect she’ll be dead before long, after a suitable period of well-deserved punishment. She did always irk me so.”
Vaelin looked at Kiral, who gritted her teeth and nodded. Reva! His creature has Reva.
“She holds no gift,” the Ally went on. “No place in the Beyond for her . . .”
Vaelin wheeled away from him, spurring to the head of the column and barking an order at Orven to follow, making for Volar at the gallop.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lyrna