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

Suri crouched beside Arion, but the Fhrey waved her away. “Fine. It’s fine,” she said.

“So it’s holding?” Moya looked around. “We’re safe then. As long as we stay in here, right?”

“How long before it gets tired and leaves?” Persephone asked the dwarfs.

“I don’t think that will ever happen,” Suri said. The mystic faced them with a miserable expression. “Arion is right. It’s not alive. It’s a weave of some sort. It won’t ever leave. It’ll struggle for eternity to get through those stones.”

“Well, thank Mari,” Moya said. “We’re fine then.”

“We don’t have enough food and water for eternity,” Roan pointed out.

This one truth was evident to all as they stood in a circle with long faces and unfocused eyes peering into a bleak future. Persephone felt someone walking over her grave again…and this time they must be directly overhead.

—

Suri saw a bloody tear slip down from Arion’s nostril. The Fhrey didn’t notice until the droplet hit her upper lip. She wiped it away, leaving a rosy smear.

“It’s killing you,” Suri said. “Holding it off is too much.”

Arion looked at the blood on her fingers. Her hand was trembling.

“Let me do it,” Suri told her. “Show me how.”

Arion shook her head. “It’s trickier than it seems. Balgargarath is a clever conjuration. It’s stopped just beating and is looking for gaps…trying to pry the barricade open. It requires my constant attention. I need to keep shifting the shield to stop it from ripping through. It’s not easy. I told you, part of my training was learning how to split my thoughts, to do two, even three, things at the same time. It’s what I’m good at, and what takes me just a little effort might be quite difficult for you.” She allowed herself a little smile. “It’s funny. Just before I left Estramnadon, I was trying to teach the prince how to split his thoughts, do more than one thing at a time. That seems so long ago…”

Arion’s expression was so sad it just about broke Suri’s heart. “And I left my home in such a mess. I told myself it wouldn’t take long to deal with Nyphron and that I’d clean it when I got back.”

Even though Arion had said it wasn’t her fault, Suri knew it was. The guilt threatened to consume her. Failing to defeat the monster, Suri had let everyone down. No. She’d done worse than that. She’d killed them. This wasn’t like forgetting to gather firewood or eating all the strawberries.

Minna must have known how Suri was feeling, for she came over and laid her head in the mystic’s lap. Such a good and wise wolf. Minna always knew how to make Suri feel better, but not even Minna could lift her spirits this time.

“How long can you keep the shield in place?”

“I’m not sure.” She waited for several minutes before saying, “Tell me about death.”

“What?”

“We live so long that death is a rare thing. But being short-lived you must have seen it often. Haven’t you? Is it awful? Gryndal’s and Zephyron’s deaths were both violent and horrible. Is it always such a terrible, awful thing?”

Suri thought about all the people in Dahl Rhen, Magda and the other trees, and animals like Grin the Brown and Char the wolf. Mostly she thought of Tura and Maeve. When Tura died, Suri hadn’t been there. She’d found Tura lying in the garden, facedown in the freshly dug soil. But she had been with Maeve. Suri had been touching her, talking with her, when she passed on. “I don’t think so,” Suri said, trying to remember how it was. The old woman just closed her eyes, and she died with a big smile on her face. “Seems a lot like going to sleep, except that you never wake up.”

Arion nodded. “Sleeping doesn’t sound so bad. I like sleeping. I wish I could sleep now.” Arion reached out and took Suri’s hand. The Fhrey had long delicate fingers. They wrapped Suri’s and squeezed tightly. “Remember. None of this is your fault. It’s mine. The Art, like anything, has good aspects and bad. Nothing can be wholly good. It’s impossible. Creation gives birth to all things, positive and negative, or what we think of as good and evil. Like all life, the power of creation seeks to exist. The Art’s greatest problem is its ability to seduce, telling you what you want to hear. It’s easier to believe the most outlandish lie that confirms what you suspect than the most obvious truth that denies it. Fenelyus taught me that. Arrogance…narrow-minded arrogance. It comes with power, and the Art is power. I thought…I believed…that even if you couldn’t defeat this Balgargarath, I could. I never doubted it, not for a second. I made the same mistake I once condemned Gryndal for: I imagined I, too, was a god. I’m not.” Her lip trembled. “If I hadn’t been so confident, I would have insisted we start up the trail to the surface the moment we arrived in that chamber out there. I wouldn’t have let us delay. And maybe we wouldn’t have gotten out, but we would have had a chance. Now…well, now…I’m so, so, sorry, Suri.”

Arion began to sob.

The ground shook. The stones placed in the crack rattled, and they all heard the thunder of the beast throwing itself against the barrier.

Arion gritted her teeth and pursed her lips. “See!” she said, wiping her eyes. Another tear of blood ran from her nose. “It’s always looking for a way in.”

—

Frost, Flood, and Rain snored.

Roan had always enjoyed the sound of a crackling fire, laughter, and a good deep snore. Iver snored when he came home drunk and lay flat on his back, a deep throaty roll. When the snoring stopped, that’s when Roan worried. Then Iver would cough, roll out of bed, and spit. From that point until he fell asleep again, she had to be prepared. For that reason, Roan liked to stay up late or wake up early. Spending her few safe moments sleeping was such a waste.

Moya also snored. Most people wouldn’t think it by looking at her, but she did. Roan wondered if she, herself, snored, and pondered how she might sound and what caused it. Most people who snored did so when exhausted and while lying on their backs with open mouths. Roan was a light sleeper and preferred to sleep on her side, but she spent a week on her back trying to catch herself snoring. She never did. Either the sound didn’t wake her, or she didn’t snore.