Age of Swords (The Legends of the First Empire #2)

“Right.” Moya nodded again, taking silence for a reply. “So what you’re saying is that…that…I’m good for nothing.”

“That’s not what—”

“Yes, it is. You might not mean it that way exactly, and you’d never say those words because you’re too nice, but that’s the truth of it.” She looked down at her feet. “You don’t think I know? You think I don’t hear what people say about me? Of course I do. It’s why no one really protested when Konniger ordered me to marry The Stump. Because the whole dahl thinks I’m some kind of whore.”

“No one has ever said—”

“They don’t have to.” Moya looked back up, her eyes glassy, her lower lip quivering. A tear slipped down and she pushed it away in anger. “But you know what, Seph? You’re right. I’m not a man. I’m not six feet tall, and I can’t lift you with one arm. I honestly don’t even know…if it came right down to it…if I could really kill someone. But I know this…” She paused and sniffled. “I’d die for you, Seph. I’d throw myself in front of a sword, a spear, or the gaping mouth of a demon to protect you. And I wouldn’t even think twice, because, as we all know, I can’t think. I’m not a genius like Roan or a Keeper like Brin. I’m not a mystic or magician. All I can do—all I’m good for—is to put myself between you and harm. But isn’t that what a Shield is? A shield? I might not be able to use a sword like Raithe, and I might not be able to wrestle even as well as Habet, but dammit, Seph, no one would fight harder to protect you. No one.”

Tears were coursing down her cheeks by then, but Persephone had her own to contend with. So did Brin. Roan was the only one with dry cheeks. She had wandered over to the desk and the wall of hammers.

Persephone leapt off the bed and threw her arms around Moya and squeezed. “I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re my Shield.”

“I’m coming, too,” Brin declared through sniffles. “I’m Keeper. I have to witness, just like at the council meetings. That’s why I came, isn’t it?”

Persephone frowned, but nodded.

Roan was bent over, opening the drawers of the desk and rummaging through their contents.

Moya crossed the room and slammed a drawer closed. “And dear Mari, we can’t leave Roan here alone. If I left a pair of shoes with Gronbach, I wouldn’t expect to find both when I got back. There’s something shifty and insincere about that Dherg.”

“I guess everyone comes then,” Persephone said. “Unless Minna chooses to stay.”

“Doubt it,” Moya said. “That wolf is crazy.”

—

Suri stood near the window, looking out at the vast white of the morning fog. She didn’t like being inside. The little people’s stone room was better than the hut of dead trees back in Dahl Rhen, and the door wasn’t bolted. That helped. She’d checked and managed to leave it open a crack, but still she missed the sun and wind. Minna felt the same way. The wolf lay with her head between her forepaws, looking up with forlorn eyes as if to say, Do you really want to go through with this? Suri didn’t have an answer, and so she stared out the window to avoid the conversation. Minna knew what Suri was doing. The wolf always did, and Suri felt lupine eyes burning into her back.

So much had changed, and little of it for the better. This time last year she was likely swimming in the blue lake, where the falcons flew, or lying on her back in the wildflower beds of the hidden meadow. Midsummers were the best. She and Minna enjoyed exploring the Crescent Forest or naming clouds while chewing on stalks of grass.

Now, they were in a cold, dark room—far, far from home. Suri tried to pretend this was an adventure—a truly grand one. That was true, but just as a plant might enjoy swaying far to the right or left with a breeze, it was another thing entirely to be torn out by the roots. Suri felt disconnected from her home and didn’t know why she had agreed to come. She was feeling sorry for Persephone, and irritated with Arion, wanting to push back. But there was more to it than that.

Why did I stay? Why didn’t I leave the dahl after everything had settled down? She had planned to return to the Hawthorn Glen after Grin the Brown died. No reason not to.

Sitting in the Dherg’s cold room, she imagined herself walking back from the dahl to her home, past the strawberry bushes and across the little creek. She would have used the four stones as a bridge, but Minna never did. On the far bank, she would pass the scorched mound. By then, more grass and flowers would have grown, helping to hide the burn marks of that circle, the place where Suri had said her final goodbye to Tura. Even if the forest had erased the evidence, Suri would remember. The Hawthorn Glen—that happy place of her youth—was empty. The trees were still there, the lake, the meadow, the birds and bees, but the heart had been burned to ash.

Because my home isn’t where I left it.

Tura had always just been the Old Woman. For a time, Suri had hated her and spent a week alone in the forest as a grand act of defiance, a statement of independence. The Old Woman wasn’t her mother and had no right to make demands. She believed the forest would be a better place if Tura left. Suri never thought the Old Woman would leave the way she did. She also didn’t expect Tura’s absence would leave such a hole. Suri’s home was just a place now—a nice place, to be sure—but only a place, and one haunted by the laughter of a once carefree girl and the warmth of an Old Woman. The hole within her still ached, but Suri had discovered, with more than a little surprise, that being with Persephone and Arion took away some of the pain. They were only strangers—Arion being very strange indeed—but Tura had been only an old woman. Funny how things that shouldn’t matter actually meant so much and how things as permanent as homes moved.

Arion woke not long after the light from the window reached the bed. Her deep, regular breaths quieted. Then she shifted, rolled her head, and finally opened her eyes. She peered at Suri, squinting, and then rubbed her face and pushed up on one elbow. She stayed like that for several minutes, staring at the floor.

“How do you feel?” Suri asked, speaking in Rhunic to help Arion learn.

Arion bobbed her head. “Very better. That boat and I don’t agree. I fear the return trip.”

Suri felt it was too early in the day to correct Arion and merely looked back out the window.

Arion sat up, stuffing the two pillows behind her back. Shifting to Fhrey, she asked, “Have you practiced the gathering chant? The finger movements?”

“You said those weren’t necessary.”

“True, but they help. Sometimes it can be difficult to concentrate. Faced with so many possibilities, it’s difficult to choose. Chants can help you center, break through the confusion, and focus your mind on the task.”

“Focus wasn’t my problem. I focused just fine. That part was easy.”

“Might need it this time.”