Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

Persephone asked her for help because Suri was one of the few who understood the bald lady’s language. She didn’t mind watching and genuinely liked Arion, despite her obsession with me and I. So few people knew how to build an interesting string pattern, and most of the time the Miralyith just slept. But there was another, more important, reason she suffered trips into Dahl Rhen’s shrine of death. She was looking for Maeve.

Suri hadn’t seen the old woman since hearing the conversation between Roan and Gifford. Maeve was as elusive as a unicorn—perhaps more so, as Suri had seen at least two of those. The Keeper of Ways hid herself in the depths of the wooden building that Suri was loath to explore. She had taken her shift looking over Arion while secretly hoping she would cross paths once more with Maeve, but so far…nothing.

“We’re out of time. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to sniff her out?” Suri asked Minna.

The wolf looked up silently.

“Fine. I understand. We’ll just have to open some doors.”

Suri didn’t like the idea of opening doors in the lodge. Given the horrors kept on display, she worried about the things they felt the need to hide.

No one was there to stop her. As usual, the place was empty. The chieftain and his friends had vacated shortly after Arion had been housed on the second floor. They were probably outside the wall again. Suri and Minna had been making a daily escape from the wooden prison to breathe free air lest they go insane. On these excursions, she often saw a group gathered on the east side of the dahl near the standing stone. Konniger, his wife, the one-handed man who had been at the cascades, and a crowd of men—as many as twenty—would be there, but not Maeve. That old unicorn never showed herself.

Suri’s bare feet and Minna’s four paws padded across the raised wooden floor. They both halted at the sound of a muffled cough. It felt wrong to disturb the silence of the flickering tomb, but she needed to chance it. “Maeve?” she called.

Suri heard a creak and the sound of one of the doors opening.

The old woman shuffled out of the shadows into the wavy light. A bony hand held a robe tight to her neck. She peered at Suri with furrowed brows. “What do you want?” She glanced at the ceiling. “You’re supposed to be up there, aren’t you? Playing guard, or gatekeeper, or whatever?”

“I need to speak with you…about Shayla.”

Maeve took a step back as if Suri had pushed her. Fear and fire both ignited in the old woman’s eyes. “Leave me alone.” She moved to close the door.

“I know how to free her.”

The Keeper of Ways stopped. “Free her? What do you mean, free her?”

“A child left in the wood is irresistible to a morvyn spirit, like a squealing mouse to a night owl. They swoop in and possess the helpless; the innocent gives them the ability to walk the face of Elan, to have a physical presence. But a child can’t hope to survive in a forest, so the morvyn turns itself into an animal—wolves or bears mostly. That’s why they get such bad reputations.” Suri looked down and patted Minna’s head sympathetically.

“In most cases, they live an unusually long life and then die. Rarely do they do anything bad because the child is still in there, still fighting for control. But if they taste human flesh, then the spirit of the child is weakened and the morvyn gains the advantage. Seeking to take total control, the morvyn lusts for more human flesh. The more it eats, the weaker the child’s spirit becomes and the stronger the demon gets. Should the spirit of the child grow too weak, then the demon becomes all-powerful, able to unleash its evil upon the world.”

Maeve cringed in horror with each word. “You said you know how to free her?”

“I read the bones,” Suri went on as gently as she could. “Grin the Brown is coming to devour everyone on this dahl. This will happen at sunrise tomorrow. So I’m going to her cave to stop the morvyn by freeing your daughter. Without a body, it can’t harm anyone. I was wondering…would you like to come?”

—

When the door opened, the old shriveled Rhune, whose face reminded Arion of rotted fruit, slowly rose to her feet. Someone was going to great effort to avoid making noise, trying not to wake her.

Arion wasn’t asleep. There was only so much sleep a person could endure. The first few days she’d been blessed with a body demanding rest, and she’d retreated into unconsciousness whenever possible. She had good days and bad. Good days were when she had trouble seeing and felt like her head was going to explode. Bad days made her look forward to good days. Recently, there had been more good days than bad, a hopeful sign that she was getting better.

With the improvement, she’d lost the refuge of sleep, which had become elusive. Arion spent hours lying on her back, staring at the wooden rafters. Most of the time she lay listening to the world: the breathing of whoever was on watch, the wind above the roof, random thuds from below, or an occasional shout from outside. On that evening, she listened to the whispers of the old woman trying not to disturb her rest.

The guard changed every few hours, always the same three: Persephone, Suri, and the old woman, whose name Arion didn’t know. Maybe she’d heard it, but it hadn’t stuck. The old woman didn’t speak Fhrey, and as a result she was as interesting as the chair she sat in. Arion’s eyes were closed, but she knew who had entered the room—impossible to miss the click of claws on wood. The girl with the wolf was back. As much as she feared the animal, which had a tendency to stare while licking its fangs, she looked forward to Suri’s shifts.

The girl was fascinating. She made complex string patterns and juggled. Suri understood the Fhrey language and talked to the wolf as if it understood what she said. And although none of those things by itself indicated anything, all of them together suggested a particular inclination. If Suri were Fhrey, Arion would have her tested for entrance into the Estramnadon Academy of the Art. The enigma, of course, came from Suri being a Rhune. Only a small percentage of Fhrey had the talent to be Artists, and Rhunes were known to be akin to animals and incapable of basic reasoning, much less mastering the Art.

Unfortunately, Arion also continued to lack any ability in that regard.

The Rhune girl hadn’t explained what she had meant about it coming back. Arion had asked, but the girl had feigned ignorance, teasing her with a smile each time the subject was broached.

It hadn’t come back.

With each day’s passing, Arion grew less confident the Art would ever return. The blow to her head had severed her connection to the natural world. The ability to sense life had gone numb. Like birds that knew when to fly south, Arion used to feel the impending sunrise and experience the shifts in weather and seasons as if they were moods, colors, or music. Once discovered, the Art had opened a previously unnoticed window through which a continuously shared consciousness with Elan passed. The world was a bonfire of power that produced constant heat, but that heat was gone, and she felt horribly cold in its absence. Unlike the numbness in her hands and feet, which had healed quickly, her connection to the world and the ability to tap it in order to wield the Art had not. Arion felt blind, deaf, and numb—imprisoned in her own body.

“You can stop pretending,” Suri said. “Padera is gone.”

Padera! That was her name.

Arion opened one eye. In the light of the little lamp with its flickering flame, the girl was perched once more on the chair, one foot tucked underneath her, the other thrown over the arm. The wolf curled up beside the chair. Both stared at Arion.

“How did you know?”

“Breathe different when you sleep.”

Arion carefully pushed up to her elbows. She could feel her fingers, which was good, and her head throbbed with just a dull ache. She was much better, yet knowing this was little comfort.

Why hasn’t it come back? If I can feel my hands, why not the Art? What if it never comes back?

“Did you bring your string?” Arion asked. Helping the girl with patterns was one of the few things she looked forward to each day.

Suri tugged on the loop around her neck, pulling it out of her clothing but leaving it as a necklace. She still sat on the chair, staring at the floor.

“Something wrong?” Arion asked.