Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
The souls of departed seers linger in the Waters of Ascendiel, their messages rare and obscure.
—Journal of Khato, Master of Spells.
Twenty miles of sparsely wooded space spread below us.
Small, cramped huts of brown rickety branches dotted the shaded greenery.
The Rising soldiers shared the Gulley and its handful of amenities with some of the less-fortunate Lotrennians.
A couple of taverns, shops, and sparring rings had been erected to keep them occupied.
The space was dismal and crowded, shadowed under the magnificence of the queendom.
Ti’s hooves slammed into the dirt as he cantered into the small town the Gulley had become.
My mind drifted to the slums of Aedrialis as measly, gaunt-faced elven children darted in between the huts, chasing each other with sticks.
A raven-haired boy paused a few feet from me, eyes wide with fear as he took in Ti’s wings and large form before they darted to me, and he hissed.
Foal, Ti murmured, his ears pinned in the direction of the young boy, who bared his teeth before running off.
He’s half-starving, I replied as I rushed to Van’s hut. Stop scaring him.
All of the elves in the Gulley were starving.
There was something wrong. Not just in the Gulley, but in Lotrennia.
Bayne and Nerissa could feel it the moment we made landfall.
Life was disappearing, the sacred Lotrennian wolves along with it.
Harvests had dwindled in the past hundred years.
It left the less-fortunate elven families hungry… and feral.
Kresida had returned to Van’s hut. She drew her blade, crossing it in front of the entrance as Ti’s massive black wings flung to the side to slow his momentum. I hopped off his back and shoved the queen’s correspondence in her outstretched hand.
Her eyes narrowed on me as she sliced the seal open.
She bristled, reluctantly removing her blade, and I strode through the opening of Van’s small hut. The dry scent of death met me as I stepped inside.
Unlike the shimmering, gold and silver art-like branches that made up the Gilded Fortress, the huts in the Gulley were drab.
Brown and broken branches knotted together to form a small living space.
Light peaked in from the gaps in the branches on the roof, casting streaks of shadows across the dirt floor.
Two menders stood at the center of Van’s hut, hunched over a long, slender body that lay beneath a cream, silken shroud. The gaunt form revealed her flesh had already been removed—a spell I had no interest in learning. From flesh to foliage.
I cleared my throat. The elder of the two raised her gray, withered eyebrows as I offered her the queen’s correspondence.
She must have been ancient. As best as I could determine, the elves aged roughly eight times slower than humans.
Which made Bayne appear as if he were only in his late twenties, even though he’d been in this world for more than two centuries.
She pursed her lips and gave a silent command to the young elven mender at her side, who eyed me with distrust. They left the hut without a word, an eerie silence filling the space as the door scraped shut.
My eyes scanned the silken shroud covering the skeletal remains before me. As it always did, the weight of life pressed down on me. As if the soul of the departed hovered nearby, eyes narrowed and watching, waiting.
I tugged my leather gloves off and slowly approached the body. I had no tools. No journal.
Kneeling in the dirt, I lifted the silk off the Lady of Tomorrow. Her clean bones were bright in the dim light. So new. So fresh. So unlike Enya’s remains I examined last year.
I closed my eyes for a heartbeat, granting her a moment of reverence, of respect, before allowing my scholar eyes to take over and begin my examination.
Tynan’s Hell.
So much trauma.
A quick look-over revealed so much. A broken femur. Triangular nicks on her second and third left ribs, likely a stab wound. A fractured left wrist, matching fractured ankles. A broken jaw. A fractured left cheekbone.
Kresida was right. She had been brutalized.
My brows furrowed as I ran my fingers over her skull, where ringed divots adorned the top. I placed my thumb in a small ring. Illness could sometimes warp bone, leaving them deformed or showing changes in density, but this was different.
My mind drifted to the fire pox that ravaged Aedrialis years ago.
That often left a small stamp of disease on bone, like it’d been struck with stones of fire.
This was different, like the same stone had struck the bone multiple times.
Something twisted in my stomach. I memorized the damage and moved on.
My lips pursed as the trauma became strange. Her left femur, the largest break, appeared to have been healed, and then rebroken. I shuddered, taking a step back and eyeing the entire body.
My gut sank. All of her breaks had been healed and rebroken. As if she’d been forced to suffer through each injury more than once. But the breaks were recent, fresh. This all happened in the last day.
But it didn’t make sense. If Van had killed her, had done all this, how could he have known about these old injuries?
We’d arrived in Lotrennia just recently.
The first breaks… The first time she’d been stabbed…
Based on its density and new bone growth, it happened years ago.
She had years to heal before she was reinjured less than a day ago.
Even if Vander was a psychotic sadist, intent on literally reopening old wounds, he couldn’t have been this exact.
Frustrated, I stood and cracked my neck.
While the elves may be biologically different from humans, the basic principles of Death Scholar analyses still applied.
But this death made no sense. Maybe it was the disease?
There’d been no word about illness in the Gulley or Ayla.
And it didn’t explain the brutality or the fact that none of the injuries seemed a likely cause of death.
My molars scraped against each other. Shit. Drystan should be here. He’d figure this out. My time was running out, and I had nothing to show for it.
My feet thudded on the dirt ground as I paced. I ran my eyes over the rest of the hut. My eyes snagged on the desk in the corner of the room. I stalked to where a stack of paper and an ink pen sat on the table alongside a deserted bottle of the sparkling wine the Lotrennians were partial to.
A strange sort of pressure shoved against my chest before coiling its way to my neck.
I ran a hand over the thick scar that seemed to tingle and stretch.
The constant reminder I shouldn’t be alive.
I’d cheated death when Dark King Daimos used the Ramadiel bone of power to heal me after Cyril had slit my throat.
It hadn’t bothered me in some time. Talon, the dagger that split it open, sat strapped to my ankle as it always did. I wasn’t sure why I’d kept it.
I rifled through the papers, scanning anything for clues.
Chore charts, ration requests, training exercises…
I paused as my hand slipped over a note from one of our healers.
Vander’s wrist. His arm had been shattered at the Battle of Odessa, and his right wrist was still giving him trouble.
So much so, he’d yet been able to wield a longsword with his dominant arm.
I had what I needed.
My heart leaped into my chest as the door swung open, casting a warm, bright afternoon light onto my back.
“Time’s up,” Kresida growled.
I rolled my shoulders as I turned, leaning over all that remained of the dead elf. I pressed two fingers to my lips and sent up a silent prayer to Ganmira and Renova, to light her way in the darkness of eternal night. The silk fell over her bones in a soft sigh.
Nerissa paced like a caged beast at the steps leading to the Gilded Fortress, rage glittering in her bright green eyes as I swung off Tiberius’s back and strode up the landing to speak with the queen.
I waited to feel something from her, a bond of some sort due to the connection of our powers, but none presented itself. And I didn’t dare ask her about it. Either we had no link, making my connection with Bayne something wholly unknown, or her emotional wall was so thick nothing could pierce it.
Soleia, the power of the sun that she shared with Bayne, remained locked up just as tight.
She’d decided on the journey here that she would hide her power as long as possible.
Her power was a beacon, and we knew Queen Antares had been after it.
Had plotted and married their widowed uncle in hopes the ancestral power would be passed to her heir, Carina.
It hadn’t. And Bayne had a target on his back as much as I did. I glanced at her, waiting for her to combust from the pent-up emotion and power, but she simply schooled her face into a blank mask of control as she fell in line with me.
“Explain,” she demanded through pursed lips.
“There was no time,” I huffed as we jogged up the golden steps. “If Vander is executed, there will be chaos. I needed to buy us more time.”
“At what cost?” she snapped.
My mouth clamped shut. She would find out soon enough.
Queen Antares lounged on the fur-covered chaise near the open balcony. Carina, looking small and mousy, peeked up from behind her book in the corner, her matching eyes shuddering as she shrank beneath her cousin’s gaze.
“Niece,” Queen Antares purred as she cocked her head to the side, examining Nerissa.
“Your Grace,” Nerissa responded with perfect, feigned submission as she dipped into a low bow that I sensed had her soul screaming in rage.
Nerissa was still as I reported my findings to the queen, who devoured the information with a keen fascination. I noted Carina’s attention as I detailed the wounds and the inconclusiveness of the body. A nod from the queen when I finally finished.
“Curious. You’re suggesting there’s enough damage on the left side of her body that the soldier couldn’t have committed her murder,” she said at last.
I nodded once, my breath held.
“She’s correct,” a soft voice sounded from the corner of the room.
The queen’s eyes snapped to her daughter, light eyebrows raising in question.
Carina cleared her throat, emerald eyes darting to her cousin for a moment before landing on me.
“The menders mentioned something similar before they returned to prepare her for the Beyond. The damage to the left side of her body was extreme. And if the soldier can’t even wield a longsword yet,” she explained, turning a timid look to her mother, “it’s unlikely he could have done this. ”
Queen Antares surveyed her daughter for a moment, and I’d never seen a starker contrast. The queen, bold and powerful, looked down her nose at her small, mousy daughter, even while she lounged on the chaise.
“Well, if a Sultiran Death Scholar apprentice and my own daughter agree the soldier couldn’t have done this, then I suppose it’s enough to release him from Pyracantha.”
A soft sigh of relief escaped me, and I let my shoulders sag.
“But an investigation will follow, Bonder. I will share your findings with the Chamber of Mystics. I’d be endlessly grateful for any additional help you can provide.” The queen flashed a sharp smile before flicking her eyes to Nerissa.
We turned to leave the queen’s hall when she drawled, “I’ll send word when it’s time to begin your training. And don’t forget, should words be stolen, tied life shall be broken.”
As we strode down the glittering steps, Nerissa let out a string of curses so colorful I had to look twice at her. The fury that replaced the calm, collected mask straightened my spine as emotion poured from her.
“Stupid. So fucking stupid. You idiotic human,” she spat.
My molars pressed against each other. It would be fine. I’d cleared Vander’s name, for now. Eight days with the queen to prevent my dear friend’s death… To prevent an uprising in the Rising…
Nerissa looks like she’s about to implode, Ti snickered as we approached.
Shush.
“We didn’t have time,” I snapped back before Nerissa stormed off.