Chapter 18 Unexpected Acquaintance #2
As they approached the outskirts of the Keep, Ezra veered onto a narrow path.
Magic from the Keep’s wards hummed with an almost indetectable sensation.
The strength vibrating off the outer walls sent prickles across her skin.
She froze in a bustling intersection. Something about it wasn’t quite right.
I shouldn’t be going this way.
Reality shifted, back into place. Ezra and Hardin were far ahead, already turning onto another path. She panicked. She would lose them if she didn’t hurry. She glanced back. Venrick was still there, stalking behind her. Alone, she would be vulnerable to his attack.
Lark took one step forward before an immovable force blocked her path.
A hulking orc materialized before her, rivulets of sweat carving paths through the soot on his green skin.
The blacksmith’s hammer in his meaty grip seemed absurdly delicate, like a child’s toy.
His brown leather apron bore the patina of countless hours toiling at the forge.
Eyes like molten copper locked onto hers as he spoke, his tusks lending his words a distinctive rumble.
“They didn’t say you would come here. Why have you come?”
Lark retreated a step, her mind finding no trace of familiarity in his presence.
“What are you doing here?” he repeated.
“I don’t know. I don’t know you,” she insisted, pushing past him. The residual heat from his forge-warmed apron brushed against her arm as she hurried after Hardin and Ezra.
At the next intersection, Lark rose onto her toes, straining to see over the sea of heads. Her eyes darted along the twisted streets, searching for any sign of her companions through the press of bodies and competing magical signatures.
“Hey,” a new voice cut through the crowd’s murmur.
A dwarf emerged from the throng, his beard neatly braided and shimmering with fresh oil.
The display case of jewelry he carried sparked with enchanted runes of protection.
Waves of exotic perfume rolled off him like an invisible fog.
Thick eyebrows knotted together as his face contorted into a scowl that seemed to deepen the very shadows around him.
“You shouldn’t have come! What were you thinking? ”
Lark stared at the dwarf, her mind probing fruitlessly for any trace of recognition, any echo of a past encounter with him or the orc. But her memories offered only the unsettling void where her past remained hidden.
“Where is she? Is she here?” he asked, his gray eyes darting around the intersection.
“Nix?” she asked, confused.
“What does this mean? Is it because of the rimeshade? I must know why you came now.”
“Do you know who I am?” Lark asked.
The dwarf’s eyes widened. He wrung his hands nervously, backing away, and muttering to himself. Without another word, he disappeared into the crowd.
“Hey, answer me,” she said, but the dwarf had dissolved into the throng of foot traffic. “Ash,” she cursed, trying to find any sign of Ezra or Hardin.
The two were no longer in sight. Her eyes settled on Venrick again. He stood a safe distance behind, watching her with curiosity.
He wouldn’t try to kill me, here in the open, would he? she wondered.
Lark hustled through the crowded streets, her steps guided more by instinct than thought, each stride carrying her farther from Venrick’s threatening presence.
Faces in the crowd flooded around her, until one among them made her pause.
It was the blonde girl from her memories.
Her glacial blue eyes and twin, sun-kissed braids were exactly as Lark envisioned.
The only difference in her appearance now was the red stone bouncing from a chain around her neck.
She cut through the crowd, each quick step taken directly in Lark’s direction.
Their gazes met and the bustling thoroughfare seemed to be suspended around them.
Those piercing blue eyes, cold as midwinter frost, unlocked another memory.
Unlike the overwhelming torrent of her previous recollection, this memory seeped in gradually.
In it, Lark and the blonde girl huddled, speaking in confidence, their voices low and urgent.
Between them, the golden device from the map in her earlier memory was held firmly in the blonde’s hands.
The memory carried with it a weight of importance, though its full significance remained tantalizingly out of reach:
“Do you know what this, what it means that you took it?” Lark asked her.
“Yes, that’s why I stole it from him. We can use this. It will tell us where the next firestorm with power will be,” the blonde responded.
“You should’ve consulted me before you took the astral lathe. Do you know what he’ll do to us if he finds out you stole this?” Lark hissed.
“Relax. I covered my tracks. This will help us with what we’re trying to do. We wanted to help get dragonriders to oppose the rimeshade. This will help us accomplish that goal.”
“I meant recruit, not foster an order of newly bonded riders.”
“You still believe focusing on taking out the rimeshade is the right thing to do, don’t you, Ella?”
“Sasja, of course, I—”
The young woman’s shoulder slammed into Lark with enough force to shatter the memory, reality rushing back in a dizzying wave.
“Hey!” Lark called out, her voice threading through the marketplace din as fragments of the vision slipped away.
Her hand shot out, catching the young woman’s arm.
The contact sent a jolt of recognition through Lark.
But the blonde wrenched away with such violence that Lark stumbled, her boots scraping against the cobblestones.
“Wait, Sasja!” The name burst from her lips with unexpected certainty.
Sasja’s head snapped around, those ice-blue eyes disclosing something darker than recognition as a light within her ruby necklace flashed.
Then she was gone, her form blurring into motion as she darted through the crowd with uncanny speed.
In her hand, azure glamor caught in the light.
The bulky object glowed with an ethereal blue radiance, its energy leaving ghostly afterimages in the air behind her.
Lark’s hand flew to her leather pack, fingers searching desperately for the familiar weight, the resonant hum of power that should have been there. Instead, they found only the soft rustle of spare clothing. The absence hit her like a collapsing mountain.
She has it. Sasja stole the Hyalite! The orb’s absence left a physical ache, like a phantom limb.
Something primal awoke in Lark then. It was a desperate, burning need that consumed all other thoughts.
She launched herself after Sasja, her feet barely touching the ground as she ran.
Any lingering sentiment from their shared past evaporated.
The Hyalite called to her, a siren’s pull that demanded response, and Lark knew with bone-deep finality that she would tear through any realm to reclaim it.
Hardin whirled, “Ezra, I think we lost her.”
“Let it go, lad. She was hard-headed and determined to go it alone. We did what we could, now it’s time to solve your problem. I can talk you through the gate but after that you’re on your own.”
As he turned back, Hardin caught sight of a blur of golden hair and eyes like frozen sapphires brushing past him. Hardin startled and did a double-take; the back of the woman’s hair was parted in the middle to form two braids.
“Sasja,” he called. “Hey, Sasja!”
She turned just enough for her profile to remain backlit, the movement precise and deliberate as if not to give herself away. The gesture carried an echo of longing.
“Hardin, you need to go to the Keep now if you want to be seen today,” Ezra said.
“But I just—” Hardin gestured toward the blonde’s retreating form.
An elf materialized between them, his tall form elegant yet impenetrable as an iron door. When he cleared out of the way, Sasja had vanished. The absence left Hardin with a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Let her go,” Ezra commanded, his voice resonating with wisdom.
“We can’t help those who don’t want it. There’s a group of Knights and dragonriders in the Keep renegotiating their contracts but that window of opportunity is closing.
Most of them will have already signed on with the King and will be tied to their duties here in Lamar.
This is your only chance to line up a quality hero for anything close to what you can afford. ”
“I have—”
“I know about your stash in that lute. And don’t think I didn’t see you collecting tips from those on the caravan. You’re still going to have to use that silver tongue of yours to convince a Knight of the Vermillion Keep to leave their posting in Lamar and to go with you to the Kingdom of Doran.”
Hardin adjusted his lute, its weight betraying the treasure hidden within its hollow body.
The streets offered no sign of Lark, and the memory of Sasja running past left an ache in his soul.
The Keep’s imposing silhouette grew larger with each step, its warded outer walls thick with draconic warding energy.
Minutes later, they crossed the moat, the dark waters rippling as azgron crocks disturbed the surface.
Ezra approached the guard post with the confidence of one returning home, he spread his arms wide in greeting to the familiar face standing watch.
“Ezra, where are you coming from, the Steelbinder Clan?” the man said, meeting Ezra with a warm embrace.
“Olaf, my friend, I’m afraid I have yet to be accepted back into the good graces of my family. The Steelbinders will have to wait a little longer for me to join them.”
“Are you still working with Cheyanne?” Olaf asked.
“That’s right. Cheyanne and I are still running a caravan back and forth between inns,” Ezra said.