25. Ava
AVA
As the sun sank behind the dark treetops, Ava couldn’t shake the feeling that their chances of survival were slipping away with the sunlight.
The evening shadows fell far too early. Ava and Brynja stood on the edge of the ruins, looking out over the lifeless camp. The bonfires were blazing but untended. Tent flaps drifted in the breeze flooding over the encampment, but nothing else moved or lived down there in the camp.
Everyone was safely hidden in the remnants of the old fortress. But how long would that last?
“Do you think this will work?” Brynja asked bluntly, arms crossed over her chest as she stared into the shadows.
Ava found herself also searching for the first signs of attack from the gathering darkness, her heart beating wildly. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
An ache tugged at her chest, as if she possessed a gaping void instead of a beating heart. She pressed a hand to her sternum and wondered if she would feel like this for the rest of her life.
It had begun the moment Dragon left her.
The aching. The loneliness.
“Everyone’s been told what to do,” Brynja said. “No sleeping. No leaving their rooms. It’s going to be a long night under those conditions, especially for the little ones.”
“It helped Prince Haryk,” Ava agreed in a whisper. “I can only hope that it will help us too. At least buy us some time. We can sleep during the day tomorrow. If we can just keep the little ones awake tonight.”
“I’ve put Roar in charge of that,” Brynja said with a grim smile, a gleam in her eye. “He’ll keep them busy for at least a few hours.”
Ava nodded, smiling in return. “Aye, I think you’re right about that. He’s a character, that one. How his mother survives is beyond me. I would always be in a state of constant panic, wondering what mischief he was getting up to.”
“Siri is made of stern stuff. She holds her own.” Brynja heaved a sigh and kicked at a loose stone with the toe of her boot. “We have to be out here. But it does get tiring sometimes.”
“I’m sure it does.”
Brynja shifted her attention from the stone on the ground to the trees beyond. “We should head inside before it gets dark.”
She led the way through the half-crumbled archway leading to the courtyard around the main keep of the ruins.
Ava had enjoyed exploring the ruins without her blindfold.
There were so many interesting nooks and crannies, and she would have liked to explore had there been time.
Maybe when this was all over, Brynja would deign to give her a proper tour.
If they were still alive, that was.
The door to the keep screeched on its hinges as they slipped inside. Brynja bolted it firmly behind them, then led the way down a corridor lit sporadically with torches. They went down the stairs to the lower levels, where the rooms had no windows to the outdoors. Only stone walls and wooden doors.
There was a large chamber where they all planned to gather, and they’d put Talos into the small storage closet where Ava had spent her first night.
Brynja acknowledged the girl guarding the door and paused to poke her head into the closet. “How you doing in here, elf? Still cranky and uncomfortable?”
Talos growled something around his gag that probably wasn’t fit for the ears.
“Glad to hear it,” Brynja snarled back before slamming the door and locking it securely.
She winked at Ava before stalking down the hall. Ava had to smile at her back, at the way the girl marched with stiff shoulders and arms swinging, her gait slightly off balance. The fact that she had progressed to winking said a lot about where they stood with one another.
Two days ago, Ava would never have imagined Brynja would ever in her life want to wink at her.
It was amazing what a common enemy could do to bring people together. Maybe that’s what Rhuin needed. A common enemy to bring the kingdoms together.
But she shuddered to think what an enemy of that scale would look like.
Certainly nothing she would want to see. Or wish on anyone else, for that matter.
The girls looked up as they entered the chamber they’d prepared for the long night ahead. Bedrolls had been laid out to keep people comfortable, but Brynja had threatened to take them away if anyone tried to go to sleep.
That had elicited giggles from the younger children and exhausted looks from the young mothers, who were probably dreading the night ahead more than anyone else.
Ava took her place beside Brynja just inside the door. Finnr and Siri were crammed on Ava’s other side, but Roar stood in the center of the room trying to juggle three small balls. He kept missing and accidentally flinging them around the room for the little ones to chase.
Ava couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose or not. But it did certainly have the desired effect on the children.
She pressed her spine rigidly against the wall behind her bedroll, only half listening to the quiet chatter and giggles from the children. Her gaze continually roamed to the doorway and the corridor beyond.
By now, the shadows outside would have grown deep. Perfect for dangerous things to break out of hiding and slip into the camp…
Someone kicked her bedroll, and Ava jumped, tearing herself back to the present moment. Ylsi sank down onto the end of Ava’s mat with a low grunt of pain.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” She met Ava’s gaze, an awkward smile on her lips. “Brynja said you know what’s out there. What’s hunting us.”
Ava blinked at the pointed statement and slanted a look toward Brynja, wondering what she was supposed—or allowed—to say. Brynja just shrugged and went back to her whittling. Several other girls shifted closer to hear Ava’s response.
A nervous flutter began in her stomach. “It was attacking the prince of Gelaira before it fled into the Shadewood. He used magic to drive it away. We thought it had been defeated…but apparently he only scared it off.”
“What is it?” Ylsi asked, leaning forward and balancing her elbows on her crossed legs.
“A shadow monster. A nightmare monster.” Ava shrugged helplessly.
“I honestly don’t know. I just know that it originally attacked Prince Haryk in his dreams. And now it has gotten out and has been attacking us as well.
Persis—ah, Princess Persis now—said that there might be more where this one came from. ”
A rumble of alarm rippled through the girls, and even Brynja cast off her feigned indifference to pay attention.
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Ava said in an attempt to defuse the tension. “It’s just what the princess hypothesized after her exposure to the creature.”
“How did they defeat it? With fire magic?” one of the younger girls asked.
Ava nodded. “And with sand magic. I don’t exactly know how. They did it while in their dreams. They fought in their dreams.”
The girls exchanged glances.
“Is that why we can’t touch it?” another asked. “When Ylsi was attacked? Because we were awake, and the only way to fight it is in our sleep?”
“Then why are we staying awake?” someone blurted in alarm.
Ava shot a helpless look at Brynja, who cast aside her whittling and jumped to her feet.
“All right, that’s enough. Quiet down. Look here, everyone. The truth is, we don’t know what we’re up against. And we don’t have any magic to fight with, so trying to fight this thing in our sleep would be like serving ourselves up on a platter for a feast.”
Silence fell in the chamber as the girls cast their eyes to the floor.
“Now, Ava’s plan is the best one we have. The dragon rider has gone for help. He’s going to bring back the prince to kill off this thing right and proper.”
“The Gelairan prince is coming here?” Ylsi asked in a horrified whisper. “You’re bringing the elves right to us?”
Ava wanted to bury her face in her hands and melt into the floor. She had hoped she wouldn’t have to answer questions like this until after Prince Haryk had arrived. Then he could have been the one fielding the frightened, angry barrage of questions. But that clearly wasn’t going to happen.
“He isn’t coming because of us. He’s coming because of the monster,” Brynja said, a brittle edge to her words.
A round-cheeked girl with nut-brown hair leaned closer. “But once he’s taken care of that thing, then he will pay attention to us. What if he makes us go back?”
“Then that’s a battle we will fight when the time comes,” Brynja barked, her words sharp and loud and silencing.
Even the children stopped scampering about the room and stood still, looking at her with wide eyes.
“We can’t fight battles on all fronts,” Brynja continued in a milder tone. “We can only fight the battle right in front of us. The first battle we have to face is surviving tonight. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re safe and warm, and more importantly, we’re together. Like we’ve always been.”
Several of the girls, including Ylsi, nodded their heads in agreement.
“Tomorrow we will fight the next battle. And we’ll keep fighting to the bitter end, because that’s what we do. It’s how we will survive.”
A bitter pang pierced Ava’s heart as she looked at these young girls, so frightened and yet filled with determination to survive the brutal hand life had dealt them.
“I’d rather fight a dozen rootwyrms than this thing,” one of the younger girls whispered, her tone raw with honesty. “It puts such terrible ideas into your head.”
“Ah, I don’t know about that,” Finnr said, leaning in the doorway and neglecting his post. “There are tales about the rootwyrms that would chill your blood.”
His low voice carried to all corners of the chamber. The women and children fell silent, clustering around him eagerly. Ava watched them, smiling even as her brow wrinkled. They looked expectant, even Brynja, who gathered up her whittling and reclaimed her seat.
Then Finnr began to hum, a deep and haunting tone that made something ache inside Ava’s chest. She relaxed against the wall and turned her face to him as he started singing in a deep baritone.
In the north, where the fir trees lean,
And the wind walks cold through stone,
A queen wept long for a living child