Chapter 9
FEYRA
I knew he was coming before he came into the square. I didn’t know how I knew, but it twinged in my mind, my senses, before I even saw him.
We were at the meeting place Roman, our guide, had said they always met. We had our horses, pack mules with food, and enough water to last us until the next village.
But I’d smelled Dion even with all the merchants nearby. His scent wafting through stronger than anything around us. I could see him from it. I could hear him from it. I knew him, because of it.
Then something else was with him.
Fear.
He entered the square looking for us in quick movements. I hoped for him to look at me, and at the same time didn’t want him to. Then when he didn’t, I felt sad. But I didn’t want to doom him like that.
I couldn’t.
Yet…
He came to Roman hurried, spoke in low tones and the two looked relieved.
He’d been longer than expected, so I could only assume it was to do with Zani, the Sleep Singer girl.
Jealousy rose in my heart and I wanted to ask him what he’d done with her.
Instead I pretended not to notice him. Acting like I didn’t care.
Pretending that I wasn’t desperate for him to look at me.
I steeled my heart, if he reached out like he had before, he would only meet a steel wall.
I busied myself with the horses again. I rechecked their harnesses and food bags, I double checked all of the strapping for the food and water. I’d unloaded enough horses and wagons for Aunt Teetee to know a thing or too. But that life was very far from me now.
I allowed myself a minute to think about Aunt Teetee, then got back to work.
I’d been receiving odd looks all evening. I suppose it must’ve been when we came into town, but I didn’t notice it until after we’d bought the horses. The man was smiling and joking with Roman, and then when he saw me and Agatha an odd expression passed over his face.
I guess we were out of towners, still dressed in the commoner clothes the wagon trains sold to Lady Skol’s citizens. Of course we were sticking out. There was no other reason.
But something told me I was wrong. It was the same thing that had informed me of Dion’s coming before he came. A sense…
It was as if Roman and Dion heard my thoughts. They looked at me quickly, both with curious eyes, then turned away. As if nothing had happened.
Shortly after, we made our way to leave the village. As it was now nightfall, the gate had to be opened especially for us. Roman, again as he had with the horses, knew someone.
We were let out reluctantly, as the doors closed, the man yelled good luck.
“Why did he say good luck?” I asked, ten minutes later on the trail.
“Because this side of Kadaar is dangerous, if you don’t know the right people,” Dion called over his shoulder.
I could see Agatha frowning in the night. The moon was high, half full and ghostly up in the sky. It grew into the sky rather than rose, and I felt a certain part of me growing with it. I could almost see as if it were daytime.
But now that I was among shifters, all my denied dreams of being a wolf were coming back. I guess I was mourning my leaving Lassig in some way.
We twisted and turned over the landscape, and when the moon passed behind the clouds, our track became more confusing. I couldn’t keep track of all the directions we changed. I soon became sick from all the rises and falls. “How far is Jebra?” I asked.
Roman laughed. “How far is the moon to her lover?”
Agatha’s frown deepened.
“Well what about the next village, you haven’t said how far it is,” I said, slightly annoyed by how both men were behaving.
Roman turned back to me, he squeezed his heels into his horse and slowed it so that it was matching our pace. “Do you know what roams the Warlands at night?”
Neither Agatha or I answered, but the frown on Agatha’s face had disappeared. Now she was afraid.
“There are feral wolves, for one. Men that have spent so much time shifted that they refuse to turn back. In fact, I’d say a lot of them have lost the ability to. They don’t want to…” He was sad telling us this. “It is a temptation that happens to a lot of young shifters.”
I hesitated for seconds about telling Roman of my history, my dormant wolf.
“But along with the feral werewolves you have our brethren, real wolves, as Lady Skol would have you believe. They’re just as vicious, but without the humanity. They’ve never been human, so their sense of justice is very different. Very interesting to talk about. But that’s for another time.”
Again I wanted to tell him the truth. I thought I felt Dion reaching out, but I pulled myself away from him. I focused on Roman. “But why do we need good luck?”
Roman didn’t smile at this question, as he had at all my others. “Because you are women. Women not of the Warlands. Women in common clothes of Lady Skol’s realm. Women that to any man, male beast of these lands, are a damn nice sight to see. You, are the ones who need good luck. Not us.”
His face had turned more and more grim as he spoke, and with the last part fell silent. He paced back up to Dion, saying nothing more.
Agatha gulped next to me, and I turned and smiled. I hoped it was a sign of bravery, because inside I was freaking out too. I’d never left the walls of Lassig, now with every second we were getting further and further from the city we’d grown up in and the danger was only rising.
I felt incredibly safe though, despite these fears. I knew that Roman and Dion were strong men, and even stronger wolves. By how everyone spoke about Dion, he was the strongest in a long time.
We didn’t speak for another few hours, only when we came to a small dip in the dark landscape did Roman motion with his head to a small hollow. It was a protected rise with boulders all around the sides.
“Here we can rest,” he said to us. “We’ll eat some of the cold foods and sleep until dawn. Then make our way on.”
Dion tied off the horses once we’d dismounted. He waited a split second for me to dismount and turn, he caught my face for a split second, and a smile broke his sullen face.
My heart bloomed and a warmth spread through me. His smile was like a mixture of chamomile and lavender tea. It had been my favorite drink that Auntie made me when I was young.
I smiled to myself watching him walk away. I couldn’t help but stare.
“He’s so secretive, what’s he hiding from us?” Agatha whispered. “He’s not spoken to you since the last village.”
I was pulled from my daydreaming. “He’s–he’s just–”
“Probably trying to figure out how he can leave us to the wolves,” Agatha hissed.
“No, don’t say that,” I said.
“You don’t know it’s not true,” she replied.
“But I do know it’s not true…you know!” I said. “Why do you want him to be bad all of a sudden? He’s saved us and helped and–”
“Humiliated you,” she said.
“No!” I felt myself turning red. “No, it was–it was something you don’t understand.”
“What? Your dormant shifter coming out?”
I looked at her in shock.
“Sorry,” she said, and did look it. “I just–it’s been super stressful and scary. I just–I’m sorry.”
I said nothing to her and went to the camp where Roman had laid blankets for us. But there were only two beds. “Roman–”
“We won’t be sleeping tonight,” he said. “Too much to do.”
“But surely you can’t stay up all night?” I said. “We’ve already done a lot of riding.”
He smiled. “Thank you. But it’s a well practiced thing. Our care is for you to sleep.”
We lay down in the blankets, both wearied from the few hours in the saddle. “So how far is Jebra?” I asked again.
Roman laughed again, but he didn’t dismiss me this time. “You ask about Jebra so casually for one that doesn’t know where she’s headed.”
“We know where we’re going,” Agatha said.
Roman shook his head. “No, you don’t. Jebra is–Jebra is a myth, a legend. Plenty of people will claim they have been there, and yet none can tell you what it looks like. Plenty of people know the way there, and yet have never been. It is a place to be feared as much as it is awed.”
“Why is that? I’d never heard of it until the letter–” I blurted, stopping myself.
Roman smiled, like something had just been confirmed.
“First of all, is an old word. In a tongue long before ours. Before it was called Jebra, it was called the city of Mahlwreith. It was a prosperous city that many people of many abilities lived among. There were as many sorcerers and witches as there were werewolves and shifters. There were men and women who could sing you to the heavens, as well as the deepest of slumbers. Your future could be told and your years reversed. Your ills could be cured in the blink of an eye. And all of it was ruled by a King and Queen very much in love.”
Agatha’s eyes had continued to grow, I knew that mine were the same.
“The King and Queen had two daughters, Andrea and Arathea. Twins born in a long year and of a blue moon. They were fated for greatness and to change the world. But when the King and Queen died, both were struck with grief. And both fixed their grief differently. One turned to the lighter arts and magics, while the other to the dark. The city began to divide. Soon there were divisions between people and families where there’d been solidarity for centuries.
The city was breaking apart and dying. And when the sisters finally came to blows, their powers were so developed and deadly, that their clashing destroyed the city.
Andrea, who had remained in the light, was so overcome with grief at the destruction of the city because of Arathea, that she killed herself by enveloping everything and everyone, including her sister, in a firestorm.
When the smoke cleared there was nothing but ruins. With no sign of either sister.”
Roman watched the stars now, speaking to them instead of us. He finally looked back at me and his eyes were cold, burning. He loathed me for making him tell me this, and yet I knew that he had to.
“It was renamed to Jebra after this event, as it seemed the only fitting title,” he said.
“What does it mean?” I whispered.
Roman was silent for a long time. I almost thought he hadn’t heard me. “It means forbidden,” he said.
I slept a shallow sleep full of nightmares and pleasant dreams. Of Jebra and the story of Mahlwreith’s fall.
I kept seeing a wolf in my dreams, watching and protecting me.
But I knew that it was Dion. He was there, but I couldn’t understand how.
When I finally figured out that it was him, I fell into a deeper sleep.
I awoke at dawn to the sounds of Roman moving around the camp. I immediately noticed that one horse was missing, along with Dion.
“Where’s Dion?” I asked urgently.
“Ahead to Doraj,” Roman replied. “He felt that something was off. He wants to check things out.”
“But I thought we were headed to Toreem?” Agatha said, rising onto her elbows.
“That’s what I told the gatekeepers,” Roman said. “If anyone’s following us, they’ll be headed in a wrong direction. Which is also why we left at night.”
“But why lie to them? Why us?” I asked.
Roman stared at me again with the same cold eyes. “Because we are hidden now. On a forbidden quest to a forbidden city, who knows what evil already lurks awaiting us?”
I reached out for Dion but he was too far away. I longed for him. I longed to be able to feel him once more. More than that, I longed for him to be back so that I knew he was safe.
But Agatha’s face however was the complete opposite. Her distrust was now being proven, and even Roman’s change had made me uneasy. What was going on?