19. On the Run
On the Run
Darien
“Y ou’ve been quiet.”
Darien glanced over at Anara, shaken that only yesterday he had no memory of her whatsoever. “Trying to sort through my thoughts. There’s a lot to go through when a lifetime’s worth of memories comes back at once.”
“I don’t know if I would call it a lifetime. You were barely seventeen when you went missing.” Anara smirked at his unamused expression. “You used to enjoy humor, Darien.”
“Let me know when you start being funny.”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you remember everything now?”
“Hardly.” He pushed his hand through his hair, scratching the back of his head as he stared out the front window.
“It’s like every memory from both lives make up this giant ball of string.
Every time I try to focus on one memory, it pulls four other strings with it that seem completely unrelated.
Why is it that I can remember my father’s face, but not his name?
Why is it that I can’t remember my mother’s face, but I can still feel the touch of Lovisa’s hand in mine on the night of the Jóltide Festival? ”
Anara chuckled. “You never were any good at hiding your feelings for Lovisa, not even as a child.”
“I better start learning then,” he grumbled. “It’s clear she doesn’t remember me. I don’t want to push my feelings onto her when she’s still struggling to remember who she is.”
Anara grew serious. “You’re right, and I’m sorry, Darien. I understand the pain you’re feeling right now, but give her time. She’ll come around just like you did.”
“Why can’t you help her remember like you did for me?”
Exasperation dripped from Anara’s tone. “I did, Darien. It didn’t work for her. I don’t know why.”
“How do you not know?”
“I wasn’t given all the answers. I’ve been searching for you both for half a century; I’d almost given up on finding you. I swear I’ve searched Safír dozens of times. You and Lovisa were never there.”
“Then what made you come back?”
Anara smirked. “Would you believe me if I told you the Norn sent me a dream?”
“I do, although”—Darien rubbed the back of his neck—“if I didn’t know it was possible, I wouldn’t believe it.”
“Which part?”
“ Half a century? You still look the same from my memories. Okay, maybe a little older than you were back then, but certainly not over fifty.”
“The more we use our galdr , the more it slows the growth and decay of our bodies. After the Great Hrun , I lived in exile and used my galdr every day. There were weeks on end when I lived solely as a raven just to survive. Galdr affected me significantly, as it has affected you.”
“What do you mean?” Darien lowered the visor, quickly opening it to check his cracked and foggy reflection. Apart from his shorter hair, he looked the same as he had that night on the beach with Lovisa. “Still just as handsome.”
Anara flipped the visor up. “That’s the thing.
You look just the same. Queen Stjarna planned to hide all four of us, but I don’t know how she hid you and Lovisa like this.
She was powerful, yes, but so powerful that you both disappeared for fifty years?
Whose galdr was fueling that? I’ve hardly aged, but you both look as though you never aged.
Even extensive use of galdr couldn’t have frozen you in time like this. ”
“Four of us,” Darien repeated, his mind buzzing, his thoughts on the blond-haired boy from his memories. “Anara, do you have any leads on where Aeron might be? Could he have been placed with another family like Lovisa and I were? Is that why we’re going to Perle?”
She hesitated. “What do you remember about Aeron?”
The ring on Darien’s finger burned against his skin, calling to him. “What do you mean?”
She kept her eyes firmly on the road. “If you don’t remember, it’s not my place to tell you.”
He would have argued, but his mind was already reaching back, picking up and discarding memories until he found the one he was looking for.
H e was standing in the palace. Word had come that Shiko was marching on Smaragd.
Aeron wanted to send help; he wanted to go himself, but their parents had not yet returned from Shiko’s coronation and attempted coup.
Darien begged his brother to wait for their parents’ return.
The people of Smaragd had no armies, leaving them entirely defenseless.
Even if Aeron had brought the entire Safirian force, he would have faced unbeatable odds.
But Aeron wouldn’t listen. It was an opportunity from the gods, he said, an opportunity to prove his valor. Aeron couldn’t pass it up. In the moment before his departure, Darien had argued with him.
“Your pride will kill you, Aeron.”
Aeron scoffed, adjusting the ceremonial sword at his hip and the gun on his other. “We can’t all hide in someone else’s skirt.”
Darien’s hand slashed through the air. “Don’t do this, brother. You’ll never make it back.”
Aeron took his men and departed. When their parents returned, Darien’s father assembled more men to reinforce Aeron’s forces, saying that his eldest son had done the right thing. But before their soldiers could depart, a messenger came with the news of the battle. There was only one survivor.
And it wasn’t Aeron.
P ain lanced through Darien’s chest. He gasped, worried that his heart might tear its way out of the ribcage enclosing it. Tears welled up in his eyes. Of everything he had forgotten, how could he have forgotten this?
“Aeron’s dead.” It wasn’t a question.
Anara reached out, touching his arm in shared sorrow. “I’m so sorry, Darien.”
The truck wound its way past another bend, down another dirt road, and toward the falling sun.
Night would be coming upon them quickly, but Darien was already overcome by darkness.
Aeron’s death unlocked a slew of memories that hurled themselves at Darien with increased ferocity, as if in vengeance for Darien’s forgetting his brother at all.
He bent his head, enduring the turmoil that racked through his mind.
If Anara noticed Darien’s tears, she never mentioned them.
“Torsten,” she said.
“What?”
“Your father’s name is Torsten, King Torsten of Safír.”
Like a key, the name clicked in Darien’s brain, unlocking new memories and numbing his pain. “Thank you.”
They traveled the road in silence as Darien worked through his memories. Although his heart lingered on Aeron, his mind tugged in another direction. “Anara?”
“Yes?”
“I get that someone must have given Dal and Vern a new name for Lovisa to help hide her, but who could have done that? Why not change my name as well?”
“Why indeed? The Norn have the power, but they haven’t been seen since Ragnorak .”
“You really think the goddesses of fate are involved?”
“They sent me the dream that helped me find you; why not this? Something is stirring. Even the animals I sheltered with felt it. Worship of the gods has only increased since Shiko’s reign. You’ll see what I mean when we get inside Lystheim.”
Anara tilted her head toward the open window, breathing deeply through her nose.
Darien was reminded abruptly of a dog, but decided to keep that resemblance to himself.
Anara cracked her knuckles. “We won’t reach the Klar?lven River before nightfall.
We’ll have to stop here tonight and continue on tomorrow. ”
Anara pulled off the road, urging the clanking trunk over the underbrush.
When she could go no further, Anara parked the truck in a shaded area.
It would be easy for any passing driver to miss the truck hidden in the shadows, not that they had seen another driver for hours.
Most vehicles granted to farmers were expected to stay within a certain range of the farm.
Farmers received a gas quota during each visit to the Wall, mainly enough to get them home and back to the Wall for their next drop.
Darien mentally thanked whatever forethought caused Dal to save up enough gas over time to fill the tank.
They were more likely to run into a sentry patrol than anything else, but had so far managed to avoid them as well.
Darien attributed that more to Anara’s skill than to luck. The Norn weren’t that kind.
Darien hopped down from the truck and made his way to the back, his legs cramping up after sitting for so long.
Upon opening the tailgate, he was surprised to find Larissa fast asleep in her sister’s lap.
Halla held a finger to her lips, but Larissa was already stirring.
The next moment, she jerked upright, her eyes wide with fear.
Halla tugged on her sleeve. “You okay, Lara?”
Larissa’s eyes roved over her sister in confusion before finding Darien.
She stilled and drew in a shaky breath, nodding to Halla and laying a hand on her sister’s arm.
Even though he knew she was Lovisa, Darien could see parts of her that belonged solely to Larissa.
There was an innate distrust in her eyes that Lovisa had never possessed, but also a newfound fierce spirit.
She was two people: the Princess and the farm girl.
Her smile was strained. “Just a bad dream, Halla.”
“ Mara ?”
Larissa hesitated. “Maybe.”
Halla’s eyes widened. “Did you see—”
“Why are we stopping?” Larissa asked, turning to Darien, her eyes capturing his.
The sound of her voice was all it took for Darien’s emotions, so fresh and compounded by the memory of Aeron’s death, to explode anew.
He longed to hold her as he had before, but the wariness hovering in those golden eyes stopped him.
She didn’t remember, didn’t seem to want to remember, and he didn’t know what he could do to change that.
Beside him, Anara scoffed. He hadn’t heard her approach.
Apparently, she could walk as silently as a wolf even in human form.
She spared Darien a glance of exasperation before turning to face the girls.
“We’ve been driving for hours. We haven’t eaten.
Some of us haven’t slept in days. We need to rest.”
“I thought you were worried about someone following us,” Larissa argued.
“I am, but it won’t do us any good to be caught dead on our feet. We’ll rest for a few hours then move on. Besides, we’re near the Klar?lven River. If there is a draugr on our tail, it won’t come near the waters.”
“Why not?” Halla asked, her interest piqued.
“It’s pure, and they’re not. Besides, it’ll cover our scent.”
“Our scent?”
Anara wrinkled her nose in response. “It’s pretty strong.”
She hoisted herself up into the bed of the truck, inching her way around Larissa and Halla to rummage through the boxes. Finding four identical bags, Anara tossed one to Halla, who just managed to catch it.
She clutched the bag against her stomach. “What’s this?”
Another bag flew out. Darien caught it with the tips of his fingers.
Anara lifted the last two bags. “Your parents thought of nearly everything. We’ll be quite comfortable unless it rains.”
Anara dropped the third bag into Larissa’s lap.
Her hands gripped it by reflex, but Darien was alarmed to see that her eyes had glazed over.
From the look on her face, Anara noticed Larissa’s distraction as well.
Halla was already opening her bag. It contained two blankets but no tent.
Opening his own bag, Darien found the same.
“Come on.” Anara hopped down from the tailgate. “Sól’s going to sleep, and so should we.”
They walked a bit further into the woods before the sun sank down over the horizon, stealing the day’s light. In the dimness, Darien unrolled his blankets then turned to help Halla with hers.
“Here, kiddo, this one goes on the bottom.” He pulled out the coarser fabric, rubbing his thumb over it. “You can tell because it’s thicker than the top blanket.”
“Thanks.” She wasn’t looking at the blanket, though; she was staring at him.
“What?” Darien asked.
“You’re really one of the Princes from Safír?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“It doesn’t surprise me.”
Darien cocked his head to the side. “No? It sure surprised me.”
Halla shrugged. “You were too handsome to be a farmer. The princes in Pappa’s stories are always the handsome ones.”
Darien laughed. Behind Halla, Larissa shook her head, but Darien could’ve sworn she smiled.
Her eyes rose to meet his, and for just a moment, they shared their amusement.
Then Larissa’s eyes clouded over, and she looked away.
Darien’s tongue worked against his teeth, but there was nothing he could think to say.
He didn’t know how to break through the wall she’d erected around herself.
As everyone collapsed upon their blankets, the darkness of the night settled around them, making it nearly impossible to see each other.
“We won’t stay long,” Anara whispered. “I’ll take first watch. Darien, I’ll wake you soon. With any luck, that beast of a truck will get us to the Klar?lven River by early morning.”
“Hey,” Halla’s indignant voice sounded to Darien’s left. “Helga’s doing the best she can.”
Darien stifled a laugh.
“With any luck, Helga will get us to the Klar?lven River by early morning,“ Anara corrected. “There’s a bridge that marks the boundary lines between the Safir and Perle commonwealths. Once we cross it, we’ll be in Perlian territory.”
Near Halla, Larissa’s blankets rustled. “If the draugr doesn’t find us first, you mean?”
“Precisely.” Anara answered. “Sleep tight.”