Chapter 21 Declan
Istripped off my heavy coat and began lifting the straps of the pack from my shoulders. “We just walked into another cave. I’m going to put you down so I can look for wood for a fire.”
A second later, a feathery head poked out of the pack that now rested against the wall of the cave in time for a brief gust of icy wind to smack órla in the face. She disappeared back into the pack.
“I’ll just stay here and guard your pack. You never know who might be in these woods.”
I sent a trickle of amusement through our bond and rolled my eyes as I wrapped the heavy coat around my shoulders again, tossing the hood up before stepping out of the cave’s shelter.
I scanned the area, but it was hard to tell where the dirt and stones of the mountain stopped and the tiny streams that normally bubbled down the slopes began.
The blizzard had picked up. Snow slammed into me sideways, pelting me with bits of ice mixed with moist flakes.
I couldn't see more than a few paces ahead, and after a moment of futile wandering, I returned to the cave empty-handed.
órla flitted about, stacking stray limbs she’d found scattered about the grotto into a pile that was now more than a foot tall.
I stood dismayed.
“You didn’t bother looking in the dry, snowless cave before you left.”
“Well, now I feel dumb.” I could barely move my frozen, cracked lips, but my eyes smiled as I joined in the search for more wood. Ten minutes later, we huddled around a small, crackling fire.
I couldn’t help thinking of Ayden and wishing he sat with us. He would likely have some jest teasing his lips, ready to make me feel less alone. We’d been apart a day this time, yet I already missed him.
I missed his smile. I missed his brassy hair. I missed his touch.
“You are thinking about him again, aren’t you?” órla asked without any of her usual teasing.
“I . . . were you in my head again?”
“I’m always in your head. You should know that by now.” A warm chuckle traveled through our bond and shook my chest. “But it doesn’t take a spiritual connection to see that look on your face. You’re staring at the fire like you want to stick your tongue—”
“All right, I get it.” I shot her a glare, unable to keep a smile from parting my lips. She was too cute for her own good. “Fine, I miss him. Are you happy now?”
Her head cocked. I prepared myself for a jab, but her voice softened to a gentle touch. “I could never draw happiness from your sorrow. The love you share flows through our bond as brightly as your magic in your soul. I would never see you parted, if the Spirits allowed such for any man.”
I stared at my companion, my mouth open and ready to speak, but could not find words. There was such sincerity in her voice, such compassion. It flowed into me and wrapped me in her embrace.
“I do love him, órla,” slipped out with a wispy breath. “I tried so hard to fight it, to resist what I knew grew inside me each time we spoke. How did he worm his way into my heart? How did he shatter the walls . . . I’d been alone for so long.”
The perky owl returned. “Bah! You have never been alone. You were just too stubborn and blind to see those around you.”
Despite my mood, I laughed. “Perhaps you are right.”
“As usual.”
I laughed again. “Yes, as usual, my little wise one.”
“Ooh, I like that. Can that be how you address me now?”
I buried my face in my hands. “Spirits, why me?”
“I have been asking that since I found you wandering in the woods.”
Unable to win the day—or any debate, ever—I reached over and scratched órla’s feathery head and let her coo-purr sing me into drowsiness.
I dreamed of fiery hair and passionate kisses.
The blizzard finally petered out, and the sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky when we resumed our journey the next morning.
Snow piled up to my knees under the canopy of barren trees but rose above my head in places not shielded from the sky.
I thanked Larinda throughout our trek, as the tunic and magical wine kept me warm.
órla settled for a few sips of wine and the warmth of my fluffy cloak.
“We should make it to Grove’s Pass by midday.”
Over our days of hiking, we hadn’t seen a single animal, and only a few birds who had apparently missed the call to migrate before winter set in.
órla hopped out of my pack and flapped to rest on a nearby limb.
“Declan, stop. Look at this.”
“Shh.” I pressed a finger to my lips as I ran my other hand across the shaft of an arrow. “This isn’t Ranger fletching. Someone else was hunting up here, in the middle of winter, and from the tip on this arrow, they weren’t hunting game.”
I inspected the area around the tree, but snow dashed any hope of discovering more.
Trees finally gave way as we stood a few hundred yards from the wooden walls of Grove’s Pass. The town was usually sleepy and quiet in the dead of winter, especially after a storm like the one that had just passed through, but something felt wrong in the deafening silence that filled my ears.
It was too quiet.
Like the land around us for leagues in every direction, the buildings and roads of the town were covered under several feet of thick, wet snow.
No guards patrolled the wall or gates.
No children played.
Nothing stirred.
“The blizzard died days ago. People should be out gathering wood, caring for livestock . . .”
These were hardy folk who were used to winter’s bite. There wasn’t a single footprint or track.
Hundreds lived in Grove’s Pass. It served as a central trading town wedged between Melucia’s capital and the Kingdom’s border. Rustic cabins that housed the folks who lived at the foot of the mountain range stood quiet, their peaks frozen.
The only sound was the wind whipping through the wood of the palisade.
órla echoed my concern through our bond. “Stay here. I’ll take a look from above.”
I stepped back into the cover of the trees and pulled my hood over my head, then closed my eyes to share órla’s sight. She launched into the air and flew high above.
As she soared over the gate, my breath caught.
Details sharpened.
Every building was now little more than a charred shell. Blackened wood frames strained beneath the snow’s weight. In many cases, roofs had failed and snow had poured into the structure.
The snow obscuring the roads that crisscrossed the town was pristine, undisturbed.
órla’s vision swiveled in my mind as she turned her head.
The Rangers’ headquarters came into view, and órla dipped down to get a closer look.
The massive building was designed to house, feed, and train more than a thousand Rangers.
When I had last seen the place, it looked like a colossal wooden box made of immense logs half as wide as I was tall.
Hundreds of years earlier, when the complex was built, the Mages’ Guild had enchanted each of those logs to resist both weather and time.
They had not anticipated Mages’ fire.
The sight of the charred rubble of my former home stabbed me deeper than any blade, and I couldn’t sit and watch any longer. I shook off órla’s sight, grabbed my pack, and bolted from my hiding spot at the edge of the woods.
Dear Spirits, my brothers can’t be dead. Let them be all right.
Then my heart seized. What if Ayden stopped here on his way to Saltstone? What if . . .
I ran toward the wooden wall, heedless of danger, desperate to see for myself.
As I drew closer, my gut clenched.
The southern gate now stood broken, one corner barely clinging to its frame by its last surviving hinge. Every beam of the wall was charred, with many little more than ashes buried under snow.
Everything in me screamed to ignore the houses and buildings and race to the headquarters, but something rising above the snow caught the corner of my eye as I passed the first house.
I slowed my sprint and peered around the burned shell.
Barely visible stretching up through the snow, a delicate hand reached toward the sky.
I threw myself to the ground and dug with gloved hands.
When I finally felt something solid, my gloved fingers worked carefully to brush away winter’s shroud.
A woman’s face, frozen in terror and pain, stared into my eyes, her mouth frozen wide in a soundless scream.
Scarlet-stained ice covered her chest where she’d been butchered by a blade.
My eyes fell to the bundle in her arms.
A girl, no more than three or four winters.
Tiny arms clung to her mother.
The same scarlet ice obscured an opening in her fragile neck.
“No. This can’t be real. Please, Spirits, let this be another dream or test,” I pleaded as I cupped the girl’s cheek.
“Declan, come. You need to see this.” órla’s voice was hollow in a way I had never heard before. I spoke a silent word of blessing to the woman and child, then rose and staggered numbly toward órla’s call.
As I passed through the center of town, more bodies appeared as lumps in the snow. I spotted dozens of arrows rising above, their dull fletching a last monument to the poor soul buried beneath—the same fletching I had seen lodged in the tree.
I paused to uncover a few, finding Rangers and villagers. They’d been burned to unrecognizable cinders or lay covered in brittle blood that had once poured from gaping wounds. Lifeless eyes and voiceless cries imprinted themselves on my mind.
I stood on the main road, frozen by the surrounding devastation.
Rubble replaced the buildings that had once teemed with life.
Shops of the butcher, clothier, baker, and others—shops I knew well, people I knew well—lay wrecked and dead.
Charred skeletons of horses guarded remnants of the stable, while a lone anvil marked the mournful grave of the town’s smith.
My neighbors, my friends.
Gone.
The once-vibrant inn, the heart of the town, had been leveled. It wasn’t even a shell of a building anymore, as the roof and walls had simply vanished. The stench of burned wood and flesh had been largely muted by the feet-thick snow, but death’s aroma assaulted my senses as I stepped inside.
I climbed over mounds of rubble to find the marble bar that lined the back of the common room still standing.
I brushed snow away, revealing the smooth surface of the countertop.