Chapter 15 #2
“A skill issue?” My voice cracked with indignation.
He was correct in a way, but insulting me?
To my face? It was one thing when Aven did it teasingly, but entirely another when some guy I barely knew had the audacity.
I put my hand on the hilt of my sword. “I’ll show you a skill issue, you little—”
“Are you calling the bards liars?” Aven interrupted, placing a calming hand on my arm before I could stand.
Rylan blinked, appearing slightly relieved that Aven had intervened.
That is, until Aven continued. “The bards employed by the monarchs of this kingdom?” The way they said it, accusatory and harsh, made it sound like they were flat-out asking if Rylan thought I was a liar.
“Yes!”
I flinched but played it off by swatting at my ponytail. “Sorry,” I said after a moment. “There was a bug in my hair.”
“I think,” Aven said, sitting on the edge of their seat, “that you need to be careful who you say such things to, including present company.”
Rylan suddenly realized he’d said that to a royal and threw out his hands, palms up. He jumped to his feet. “No! I mean, no! I mean… um… maybe?”
“Anyway, I’m uncertain that anyone should be relying on the songs of bards for factual information,” Aven said diplomatically.
“We don’t really have standards for accuracy and uniformity when it comes to their lyrics.
Different bards interpret stories differently, but the source material is the same. ”
“But we should have standards! For two reasons. One—it’s the main avenue for common folk to receive news.
And two—the tales are considered to be the main purveyor of history.
” A beat of stunned silence followed, and Rylan shrunk into himself.
“Look, I wrote the letters merely asking for the chance to interview you about your adventures so that there is a factual accounting of what really happened in a few of your quests.”
“How many is a few?” I asked, voice a croak.
“All of them.”
I made an affronted noise.
“Just to clear up minor details! Or the major ones. That’s all! I meant no disrespect. I didn’t really expect you two to travel all the way here. I mean, I hoped.”
“Your vision board?” I offered.
“Yes.” Rylan snapped his fingers. He patted the parchment tacked up on the wall behind the lute, apparently his vision board. “I hoped you would, but I never in a thousand years thought…”
His gaze flickered between me and Aven on the couch. Then he seemed to take in Zig and Farrah as well. Zig had found a spot of wall to sag against, and Farrah stood behind me, hands on her quarterstaff like she was ready to whack heads if she needed.
Rylan sighed. “You’re not here about the letters.”
Aven clasped their hands. “No. We’re not here about the letters.”
“Oh.”
“We’re here about your grandfather.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding, sinking back into his chair. “I should’ve known. That was his house we walked through.”
I swallowed down my irritation and focused on the task at hand, which was finding any information about our current quest. “He had quite the collection.”
“He was well traveled. He encountered a lot of things and knew even more.”
“That’s what we’re hoping,” I said. “Did he ever mention the Elder Beast?”
Rylan’s demeanor shifted suddenly from welcoming to wary.
“Why do you ask?”
I leaned forward in my seat, gripping my knees, and poured every ounce of sincerity into my words. “It’s important. We need to find the invisible realm.” I hoped I’d imbued my sentence with the appropriate amount of pleading.
Rylan narrowed his eyes. “Find it for what?” He stood again and wrung his hands. “Is this an adventure for the king and queen? You’ve defeated quite a few of the remaining ancients and folklores. Is this a step up? Is this for some sport, so you can say you’ve defeated a primordial being?”
“A what?” Zig asked.
“Yeah, a what?” Farrah echoed.
Rylan pointed at them but stared at Aven and me, his eyes as hard as stone. “They don’t know?”
“It’s not for a quest. It’s not for the royals.
” I gently placed my hand on Aven’s forearm, then dug in my nails because I didn’t need them to chime in at that moment.
“It’s for my brother, Zig. The one standing back there who looks exactly like me but not.
He made a mistake and a council of mages—”
“Duo,” Aven corrected under their breath.
I stabbed my nails in harder.
“Mages are going to take his heart unless I—”
Farrah cleared her throat.
“We,” I amended. “Unless we bring them the horn of the Elder Beast.”
Rylan’s eyes widened. “The horn? You’re going to try for the horn? That’s… Not only is that the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard, handing over a piece of a primordial being to a council of mages—”
“Duo,” Zig said weakly.
“Fine,” Rylan continued. “A duo of mages, not knowing what they intend to do with it. But do you think that the group of you have any chance of not only finding but overpowering a being that is older than time?”
“Older than time? What does that mean?” Zig asked. He pushed away from the wall. The chipper Zig from that morning had all but disappeared and been replaced by one with a wan expression and a faded smile. “What’s a primordial?”
“Um… okay,” Rylan said, hands on his hips.
“So you know the beings we call ancients, right? Dragons and Harpies and griffins, et cetera. We call them ancients because they were the first beings that populated our world. Some even view them as gods or deities because they are so powerful, like how the Lady in the Sea is worshipped or how villagers used to leave offerings for the Golden Dragon.” Rylan gave me a knowing smile.
“Their numbers dwindling over time has only added to their mystique.”
Farrah tilted forward, pushing her body over the back of the couch so her face was right between mine and Aven’s. “What about fire salamanders?”
“Good question. Those are second beings, like the faeries and sprites and gnomes—magical but with diminished capabilities. We call them folklores. They’re not as powerful as the ancients.”
Ha! Tell that to the murderous faery in the forest and the fire salamanders that wanted us as meals.
“Then there are the third beings. The ordinaries. That’s us. And common animals like horses, fish, lizards, bugs, sheep.”
Aven snorted at the mention of sheep. “I still think that thing was magic,” they muttered.
Zig drifted close to Rylan, expression pinched. “That doesn’t answer my question about what a primordial is.”
“Doesn’t it? Who do you think created the ancients? The faeries? Us?”
“The Elder Beast?” Zig whispered, tone tinged with awe.
“Yes. Primordials are creators. The Elder Beast is maker of all the creatures in our world.”
“You used the plural. Like there is more than one,” Farrah said, still leaned over the back of the couch.
Rylan grinned. “Well, there is more than one, of course. The other primordials were responsible for the wide seas and the high mountains and the heavens above us.”
Zig whirled on me. “You knew?”
I stood, releasing my hold on Aven that I had embarrassingly never let go of. I grabbed Zig’s upper arm to steady him as his willowy form swayed in the face of all the overwhelming information.
“Sit,” I said, pulling him to the couch.
He sank into the cushion.
I swallowed. “Yes, I knew. I knew before I agreed to the quest. But it’s fine, Zig. We can do this. I will do this.”
Zig placed his trembling hand over his heart. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wouldn’t have helped for you to know.”
“It’s an impossible task.”
“Maybe,” Aven interjected before I could attempt to reassure Zig. “But your sister has accomplished many impossible tasks before, so there’s no reason she can’t do this as well.”
For the second time that day, my stomach twisted for some inexplicable reason and my face heated with a flush.
Once again Aven believed in me. A pleasant shiver ran down my spine at the thought.
But I didn’t deserve Aven’s utter faith or the concern that furrowed their brow or the fatigue that had set in the line of their mouth.
I didn’t deserve the sincerity of their words.
And that’s why they couldn’t know the real me, find out about anything I’d done before, because I didn’t think I could handle them thinking less of me.
I pushed those feelings aside. They didn’t belong here.
I crouched down to meet my brother’s brown eyes, a mirror of my own. “I took on this quest knowing the risks,” I said. “I will see it through. You’re my brother. I’m not giving up until the flame burns all the way down on the last day. Okay?”
Standing, I spun to face Rylan. We were the same height, though his body was broader. But he couldn’t intimidate me. I might not have done everything the bards had concocted in their stories, but I did face down a dragon at thirteen.
“As you can see,” I said, hand on the hilt of my sword, a growl in my throat, “this is no ordinary quest. If you have any information, now is the time to tell us.”
Rylan swallowed, then squared his shoulders and lifted his chin, as if facing down a manticore. “You’ll take me with you on the quest,” he stated. “And you’ll tell me all the details of your adventures and allow me to write an exclusive tale about this one.”
I tipped my head back and groaned. Not another one. But if this was what I had to do… “The information better be good. If so, then yes. I agree to your terms.”
He nodded, coming to his decision.
“There is a map.”