16. A Connection
A Connection
Darien
D arien shielded his eyes against the rising sun. Midmorning air whipped through open slats of the truck bed’s walls. He rummaged through his bag. Darien's hands paused in delight as he touched the worn black leather. Aagen had packed Darien’s favorite jacket.
Although he winced from the pain caused by pulling his arms through the sleeves, he smiled at the familiar fit of the leather.
Whatever Anara gave them had healed most of his damage, but his ribs were sore and protested any abrupt movement.
Unfortunately, there were nothing but abrupt movements in the back of the truck as it wound down dirt roads.
Darien pulled another shirt from the bag, stuffing it under his jacket to pad his ribs before settling back down and ducking his head from the beams of the sun.
As though riding the sun’s light, Aagen’s words came back to him.
Two horses, árvakr and Alsvier, are guided by Svalinn. They pull Sól across the sky, giving light to the world. In the winter, árvakr and Alsvier run faster out of fear that the wolves Skoll and Hati will devour them along with the sun.
But the memory was distorted, and another voice that Darien could not remember intertwined with Aagen’s. The vision of the man with dark hair and bright eyes flashed in his mind once again.
As she had so often, Larissa caught his gaze, sitting in the same position she had taken hours ago with knees drawn into her chest and head cradled in her crossed arms. She looked as though she were sleeping, but Darien could see the tight strain of her shoulders.
The thick scar left by the draugr ’s talon was barely visible behind strands of white hair still streaked with blood.
Anara’s medicine had only healed the wound, not erased it.
Darien wasn’t sure if he could ever look at it without feeling the heat of the flames and hearing Larissa’s cries of anguish when she thought she’d lost Halla.
It wasn’t fair that she would have such a constant reminder of all she had survived and all she had lost.
Darien hissed as the truck struck another pothole.
Larissa rolled with it, absorbing the impact, hardly shifting from her spot.
Either she had incredible self-control, or she was lost in the darkness of grief.
The fire in Larissa’s eyes when she’d saved Halla had been extinguished, and Darien didn’t know how long it would take to rekindle. He just wanted to be there when it did.
“You’re staring.” Those golden eyes bore into his own, glazed over and unfocused. Her stare was better than her silence.
“How are you?” Darien clenched his jaw, cursing his own stupidity. “I meant, obviously, you’re not great. Do you need anything?”
Boxes of water, food, and supplies surrounded them.
They were both splattered with blood, and their clothes were a mess.
Surely, there was something he could offer, something he could do to help.
Something to take away his uselessness as Larissa stared through him.
Darien waited, wondering if he should repeat his question.
When she spoke, her words were mumbled under a sigh.
“How did we end up here?”
“If you mean how did our existence in this world come to be,” Darien answered, his mind grasping at the first thing he could think of, “my father, Aagen, said mankind was formed from ash trees. If you’re asking how I ended up in this truck, I decided to rescue a girl who didn’t want my help, crashed my truck, was paralyzed by a little girl who turned out not to be a little girl, and followed my hallucinations to your farm where I was attacked by a monster. ”
Larissa’s brows pinched together. “Do you know you’re babbling?”
“I do.”
Larissa nodded, but already her eyes were glossing over. He had to keep her talking, anything to keep her from falling into despondency once again. “How do you know Anara?”
“I don’t. Not really. Halla befriended her a couple days ago, but she showed up again last night.” Larissa paused. “She looked like me.”
Darien nodded. “She was a child when I first met her.”
“She’s a shifter, a Rubinian.”
Darien nearly pointed out the obvious but stopped at Larissa’s tone. They both knew Anara was a shapeshifter, but the look on Larissa’s face revealed her unspoken fears. If Anara was from Rubin, the land that most fully supported the Empress, why was she helping them?
“We can trust her.” To his surprise, Darien believed his words the moment he spoke them. “We wouldn’t have survived the draugr without her.”
Larissa looked away. “Not all of us did.”
Darien didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry for your loss? What good would those empty words do? Instead he reached out, his fingers brushing the top of her hand. “You saved Halla. That’s what your parents would have wanted.”
Larissa swallowed, her hand tightening into a fist, but the expression in her eyes was dead.
“I should have listened. I think Pappa knew something was coming. He kept telling us stories about the Empress and the draugr , but I didn’t think they were real.
We were going to leave the farm; he said there were people who could help us. I should have listened to him.”
“You couldn’t have known—”
“Yes, I could have,” she snapped, withdrawing her hand from his. Tears spilled over her cheeks, but she made no move to wipe them. “I just had to listen.”
Helga’s motor whined underneath them. Darien thought of Larissa’s parents and of the body he had found in the field.
There hadn’t been time to bury the field hand.
He didn’t even remember what Halla had called him.
Would his soul ever find rest? Darien sent up a prayer that the Norn would guide his soul.
“The Norn don’t always reveal our fate,” Darien murmured. It was something Aagen often said to him.
Larissa sniffed, rubbing her hands against her eyes. “I didn’t believe in the Norn, or any of the gods, not really, but now…”
Larissa let the sentence hang in the air. Darien knew what she meant. He’d always believed in an abstract sort of way, but his understanding of the world had expanded in just one night. If the draugr were roaming Evrópa, were the gods doing the same?
Larissa shook her head. “Either way, I’m not holding my breath for their help.”
A shiver ran over Larissa’s body, drawing Darien’s eyes and mind back to the present.
He scooted toward a box where a blanket lay on top.
Careful of the truck’s bouncing, he moved to sit next to Larissa and wrapped the blanket around her, tucking it behind her shoulders.
Darien’s fingers paused when a lock of white hair brushed against his bruised knuckles.
“Why did you come for us, Darien?” Larissa asked.
Startled, he snatched his hands back. But if Larissa noticed the way his hands had lingered, she didn’t show it. “Anara told me you needed help.”
“There aren’t any farms close enough for you to arrive in time, which means you were already on your way. Why?”
Darien settled next to her, extending his legs alongside her own. How could he say this without sounding crazy? “Anara found me the day I met you and Halla. She touched my face, and it felt like…” He paused, trying to think of the right way to say it.
“Like a shock from a cut wire?”
Surprise filled his face. “How did you know that?”
“Finish your story.”
He considered pushing her for the answer, but her tears had finally dried. His story, at the very least, could offer a distraction from her grief. “Ever since then, I’ve been seeing things. I thought they were hallucinations, but Aagen said they might be memories.”
“Your father?”
“Not technically.”
Larissa stared in silence.
Darien picked at the frayed edge of his jacket.
“Aagen found me abandoned in his orchard when I was a toddler, and I’ve pretended to be his son ever since.
Or at least, that’s what I thought. Turns out everything about my childhood was a lie.
” Darien cracked his knuckles one finger at a time.
“I have memories of growing up in that orchard, learning how to cultivate the land. In my mind, I have lived with him for most of my life. Aagen says I have only been with him for a little over a year.”
The surprise on Larissa’s face matched Darien’s own initial shock. She shook her head. “But you have memories of growing up there.”
“Aagen thinks they are false memories, planted there by whoever brought me to him. I’ve had enough visions, or memories, that I’m inclined to believe him.”
Darien stopped, hesitant to share about his supposed royal birth. He still didn’t understand that one himself. Besides, he didn’t want Larissa thinking he was trying to impress her.
“Why would someone bring you to him?” Larissa asked. “Who could do that?”
Darien shrugged, instantly regretting the decision as his ribs protested.
“Aagen said the woman who brought me first appeared to him before the Empress took over, then again a year ago when she brought me to him. He never got her name. He said she had hair the color of starlight and eyes as green as our apples.”
Larissa’s fingers knotted together in her lap. “That’s not possible.”
“Tell me about it, but these dreams and visions drove me to your farm.” Darien paused, but he knew he had to be honest. “I saw you and Halla in my dreams. I don’t know how, I just knew that I needed to find you.
I wasn’t far from your farm when Anara found me, and, well, you know what happened next. ”
Larissa nodded, staring blankly ahead. Darien brushed back the loose curls from his eyes, wishing she would say something. Did she think he was insane now? It was probably a good thing he hadn’t mentioned the prince thing. He leaned back, at a loss for words for once in his life.
“Thank you,” Larissa said.
When Darien glanced over, Larissa was staring at him. To his surprise, the hint of a smile grew beneath those golden eyes. “For what?”