The Raven Queen, page 27
part #2 of Storyweaver Series
He had to find the source of the darkness. If it was the Shavln, he needed to know why it was targeting the water and why it was affecting the forest. There had to be a reason. Sophie hadn’t known what it could be, but then, she didn’t know much about this power. She only knew that it was free.
Lan raced along. Every so often, he paused. Sometimes he paused to examine his surroundings, to study how the landscape shifted and changed, and other times he paused to see if he could still see the darkness within the stream. It wasn’t nearly as wide here as it had been deeper in the forest, though he hadn’t yet seen any branch points or anything that would indicate that it had a reason to have changed.
There were other times when he paused to take a few bites of jerky. He didn’t have much food, only enough to get him through a day or two at most, and certainly not nearly enough water to last longer, either. He would have to find a source of fresh water, possibly food.
He ran on.
Lan marveled at how quickly he was able to move. This was clearly due to the woman’s power, and not at all his own natural ability. He paused at one point on a slight rise, when he thought he had seen movement, but there was nothing out there.
He followed the stream again. Gradually the day shifted, the sun starting to sink in the sky, falling behind him.
There was no sign of the forest. He’d been running for the better part of the day, and despite that, he didn’t feel nearly as tired as he would have expected.
Did he still have the same glowing power?
As he leaned over the stream, the reflected sunlight made it difficult to see whether he was using up the woman’s power while running, though he didn’t know if such a thing was even possible. Maybe this was how she wanted him to use her power. There had been no further sound to indicate the presence of a thisten, and no sign of anything other than the stream.
When the sunlight faded, he could finally tell that he was still glowing. How much power had she given him? And why had she given it to him?
He paused to rest by the stream. Sitting there, his heart pounding, he didn’t feel as tired as he should have. He thought that he needed to sleep. When he had awoken in the morning, he had felt as if he had needed to sleep, but now that he had been on the move, running, and presumably drawing upon the strange power the woman in the forest had gifted him, he wondered if perhaps he didn’t need much rest.
That didn’t change how hungry he was. Lan pulled out the jerky and started to nibble at it. Before long, he’d finished all of it. He looked down at the empty wrapping and wondered if he’d made a mistake. Other than the grass, there was nothing else edible around him.
And the stream wasn’t safe for him. None of this was safe for him.
A mistake.
Lan got to his feet. He started running again.
Moonlight streamed down. It was a strange change from the darkness within the forest.
It was near midnight when he felt something. Pressure. Lan didn’t know how else to describe it.
He reached for his sword, unsheathing it.
He paused, feeling for any sort of rumbling, but he didn’t detect anything that suggested a thisten prowled near him.
What had he sensed? Lan moved more carefully now. The ground sloped upward, but despite that, he’d been running fairly rapidly and wasn’t as winded as he should be. Of course, none of this was as it should be.
He thought he should be near Lorant. There was no sign of soldiers, nothing to suggest that he was in any danger. Lan advanced carefully, moving up the slope. A sound came to him out of the darkness.
At first Lan struggled to determine what it was. The sound of water lapping gently.
Is it the stream?
Crawling forward, Lan stayed low, looking everywhere around him.
He saw a sign of movement. The movement came to him, turning in his direction. It looked like shadows across the horizon. Suddenly the ground trembled.
Thisten.
Chapter 27
SOPHIE
Sophie gripped the reins tightly. Having Nevarn so close to her left her a bit unsettled, though she felt as if she had misjudged him all this time.
Had it not been for Nevarn, what would have happened?
She tried not to think about that as they rode along the forest’s edge. She also tried not to look behind her, not wanting to stare back at Lan as they left him.
It was difficult for her—difficult in that she wasn’t sure if she should have left her brother, and difficult in that she had come all this way to find her brother, and now that she had, she was leaving him.
It was what Lan wanted, and she understood that, but leaving her brother behind, even knowing that he wanted her to do so, was hard for her.
When they stopped late in the day, Sophie climbed down from the horse’s saddle and rested her hand on the saddlebags. She glanced at Nevarn when he handed her a waterskin.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said.
“What’s there to say?”
“You did what you came for. You should be relieved that your brother is unharmed.”
Sophie frowned at him. “Unharmed? Lan was not unharmed. All of this”—she turned, sweeping her hand toward the forest that still loomed nearby—“is not unharmed. I don’t even know what he went through, and I don’t even know what to make of that.” She motioned toward the thisten head, dangling from the saddle, the smell of it foul.
It seemed different now. Sophie couldn’t tell if it was shriveled or if it was only her imagination. Either way, traveling with the head of a creature like that, even bound as it was, made her shiver.
“Your brother is a Taihg soldier. He’s doing what he must.”
Sophie remained uncertain.
Perhaps she should not. She didn’t know what Lan was responsible for doing—not really. He had served the Taihg in the years that they had been here, and having seen her brother with his sword, the way that he fought, she couldn’t help but feel that he truly belonged, that this was what he was meant to do.
Still, that did nothing to change her uncertainty.
At least the journey hadn’t been a complete washout. She had come to help her brother, which she had, but she had also come across proof that the Shavln was active. Darius had done exactly what she had believed, though she hadn’t really needed proof.
Now they had this thisten, and Sophie couldn’t help but wonder if it was the start of Darius’s plan with the Shavln. They needed to get back to the city, warn the Taihg and the Raven Queen, and they needed to do so quickly.
Sophie took a small sip of the water. Her stomach rumbled, and she turned away from Nevarn, hiding it from him. If he were to know that her stomach rumbled, he would probably offer her another pastry, something else that would make Sophie feel she had to repay him.
“What do you think he might find?” she asked Nevarn.
He stared out over the horizon, looking out into Lorant. “I don’t know if he will find anything.”
“You know something,” Sophie said.
Nevarn frowned. “I don’t really know much. I just know…”
Sophie watched him, waiting for him to share something more, but Nevarn did not. It bothered her. He was keeping things from her. After the time they’d spent in the forest, she would have expected him to share more, so that they were on the same page with what they were dealing with.
“Then why did we let him go?”
“Do you really think you would have been able to deter your brother?” Nevarn smiled. “I don’t know him that well, but my experience with him has been that he can be stubborn. Stubbornness can be a good thing in a soldier, but it can be frustrating in a sibling.”
“I didn’t know you had any siblings,” she said.
“I don’t. Not anymore.”
He turned away, falling silent.
“What happened?” Sophie asked.
“It’s not something I talk about,” he said.
“Why not? If something happened—”
Nevarn turned back to her, shaking his head. There was tension there that she wasn’t accustomed to seeing in him. “It’s not something that I talk about.”
Sophie recognized his intensity. It was one that she’d seen in her brother before—and it was one that she had seen in other men in her life, occasionally within Valan—but also before that, when she had been in Neylash, and even before then. There was a danger in pushing someone who had that barely constrained anger.
“I’m sorry I brought it up,” she said.
“It’s not your fault. I made a mistake.”
Sophie shook her head, and she took another sip of the water as Nevarn looked away from her, staring out into the distance once again. She studied him, thinking about everything that she knew about Nevarn, along with the Raven Queen. There was so much about the prince that she realized she didn’t know. She knew about his father, as stories spoke of the king, but she had never known about any siblings. The Pale Princess had been nothing more than a story—hadn’t she?
“We can keep moving,” Sophie said.
“Only when you’re ready,” Nevarn replied.
His voice was soft, and it seemed more distant than she was accustomed to with him. Of course, ever since she had found her brother, Nevarn had seemed a little bit more distant. Given everything they had encountered, that didn’t entirely surprise her. As far as she knew, Nevarn hadn’t much experience with fighting, even though she had heard he was a skilled swordsman. What they had encountered had probably left Nevarn troubled.
It had left Sophie troubled.
Strangely, or perhaps not strangely, this experience hadn’t bothered her brother as much as she would have expected. Lan had taken it all in stride. How much had he gone through over the years to be able to take such things in stride?
She climbed back into the saddle. Nevarn situated himself behind her, holding on to the saddle, leaving Sophie to clutch the reins. He said nothing when they took off. They rode quickly, heading along the forest line, leaving Sophie to marvel at just how far they had to travel.
“I can’t believe we went this far in the forest,” she said at one point.
Nevarn looked over toward the trees. They reached high into the sky, and darkness swallowed their trunks, giving off a sense of energy, a sense that left Sophie wanting to turn away. As they rode, her gaze drifted to the thisten’s head.
That wasn’t a story.
The creature had been real. She had seen it. She had helped defeat it.
Nevarn’s stomach grumbled, and she frowned at him.
“You need to eat.” Sophie opened the saddlebags and sorted through them. He had to have some food in them.
“I’m fine,” Nevarn said.
“Fine? You don’t look fine.” She frowned at him. “You look like you need a full water jug and a meal.” She flashed a smile. “Along with several pastries.”
“Pastries always make everything better,” he said.
“Of course they do,” she said, smiling at him. “What is it?”
“I didn’t tell you much about what happened before we left the city.”
“I didn’t know that something had happened before we left the city.”
“You knew that your brother and I…”
Sophie shrugged. “I figured that you had some experience with him.”
“He saved me.”
“And that angers you?”
“No, but it’s the reason why he had to save me.” Nevarn looked out behind them. “We haven’t seen any Lorant attack in quite some time. I’d been hearing rumblings through the network I have.”
Sophie started to grin. “Your network?”
“One of the things my mother has asked of me is to create a network of connections of my own. She tells me that such a thing will be valuable as I begin to take on a greater role within Reyash.”
Sophie could see the logic in that. “So?”
“So I’d been hearing about activity in Lorant. No one really believed me, least of all the Taihg. I brought some men with me, wanting to investigate, and… well, we were ambushed. Had your brother and a few others not come after me, I would probably have been killed.”
Sophie frowned. Why hadn’t Lan said anything about it?
But then, knowing her brother, he wouldn’t have said anything about it. Anything that he had done would have been his responsibility. Saving Nevarn had been his responsibility.
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “My mother seems to think that it was nothing to be concerned with.” He scowled for a moment. “With her power, she feels that she is able to know what’s taking place out in the world far better than anyone else, and it means that she becomes unwilling to take action if she doesn’t think that it will matter.”
“She is the Raven Queen,” Sophie said.
Nevarn gave her an irritated look. “Don’t you start with that as well.”
“With what?”
“That’s all I’ve ever heard my entire life. ‘She’s the Raven Queen. She’s powerful. She’s…’” Nevarn shook his head. “She is. I suppose that’s all I need to say about her.”
“She’s protected Reyash.”
“In her own way, I suppose,” Nevarn said.
“You don’t think she has?”
“I don’t know. I only wish she had been around for me a little more than she has. I wish that she had been around for others more than she has.”
Sophie smiled at him. “At least your mother is there for you. My parents were lost so long ago that I don’t really know anything about them. Stories that my nana and papa told, but nothing more than that.”
He smiled at her. “There you go again.”
“There I go again with what?”
“With your stories. You still haven’t told me the key to Edgar’s story.”
“I told you that I’m not going to.”
“You can’t keep it from me. By the time we get to the city—”
“By the time we get to the city, you will have had plenty of opportunity to figure out the key yourself.”
“Why do I get the sense this story matters to you?”
Sophie turned away and took a bite of the pastry she’d fished out of a saddlebag. There weren’t many pastries remaining, and there certainly wasn’t much food left in the saddlebags. It was only a few scraps, along with a few sips of water in the waterskin.
“All stories matter,” Sophie said.
“Do they?”
“The way that my nana told them, they did,” she said.
“She sounds like an interesting woman.”
Sophie only nodded. What would Nana have thought of her now?
Maybe Nana would have been telling stories about Sophie, using those tales to regale her with her own feats, things that Sophie had done that would seem impossible to anyone who might be listening.
Given what Sophie had encountered in Neylash, she couldn’t help but feel there were aspects of her life that should have been impossible. Not only had she met the Pale Princess of stories, but she had been trained by a sorcerer in his tower, and she had uncovered a dangerous magic, one that threatened to overpower anyone else who possessed magic.
“She was an interesting woman,” Sophie said.
“I’m sorry they were killed,” he said.
She finished eating the pastry in silence, her mind going to her grandparents—and to her parents, though she tried not to think too much about them. The pastry was good, though maybe not quite as good as the one she had eaten when she had first come this way.
“How much farther do you think we have to go?” she asked.
Nevarn shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Why do I get the sense you’ve become more troubled the farther we go?”
“Because I have.” He took a deep breath and nodded to the thisten’s head. “Because of that.” He looked up at her. “That and what happened to me. I think they’re connected, though I don’t know quite how.”
“Connected?”
“The attack out of Lorant. This creature. Anything else that’s taking place within the forest.”
“If it’s tied to the Shavln, then the connection makes sense,” Sophie said.
“I’m not sure whether it’s the Shavln or whether it’s simply Darius starting to organize. I think it’s time we sent strength into Lorant—real strength—to investigate.”
Sophie had a good sense of what he implied. War.
“You would lead it?” she asked.
“Somebody has to. So few believe that Lorant poses the danger that it does.”
“What about what my brother sensed?”
His face wrinkled in a frown. “I’m not sure what your brother knows.”
“He knows about the thisten.”
Nevarn shrugged. “For all we know, they’ve lived in the forest for years.”
Sophie glanced at the thisten’s head. “Don’t you think that the people of Reyash would know if they had been there all along?”
“In that forest?” Nevarn shook his head. “They could have been there all along, and no one would have been the wiser.”
“What about the Shavln?”
“We’ve not seen any sign of it, Sophie.”
After everything else, she had hoped that Nevarn would share her concern, but he did not.
None did.
“We should move faster,” she said softly.
“Sophie…”
She squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and let it out as she opened her eyes. Nevarn stared into the distance, at the empty road. It fit her mood. It fit how she felt about everything she’d experienced within Reyash.
Despite everything, she still wasn’t going to be able to prove herself.
Chapter 28
LAN
Lan moved back, thinking that he’d already been spotted by the creature.
