Chapter 20 #3
It stopped by the cave mouth, one paw already outside. “What does the Son of Ice want?”
“What’s your name?” Aiden didn’t expect an answer, but it was worth a try. All the more did the words trickling from the leonthor’s thoughts right into his startle him.
“Hodurac Fire Wing, Son of Ice, King of the Leonthors.”
Aiden wanted to call after Hodurac, but by the time he opened his mouth, the King of the Leonthors had evaporated into smoke and shadows.
Twenty people sat around the fire in the cave Hodurac escorted him to the next morning.
Twenty; all of them dressed in clothes barely better than rags.
They were all well enough nourished for people having been hiding in the mountains without any connection to civilization for years, and some of them sported weapons of fine making; Aiden had held enough poor ones in his hands before Ashthorn to tell the difference.
Twenty pairs of eyes stared at him as he stopped in the cave mouth, right where the tunnel ended.
“Son of Ice, meet the Flames.”
Aiden had no idea whether the people around the fire could hear Hodurac, but he waved all the same, one hand at his hip where his blade should have been attached.
“Good morning.”
Nobody greeted him back, but the man closest to him extended a bandaged hand toward his sword.
“I’m not here to harm anyone,” Aiden quickly amended.
“Good,” the man said, his full lips pulling back over his teeth like he was about to growl like a beast. “We’ve had our fair share of strangers showing up over the past weeks, and none of them truly came in peace.”
He wasn’t the only one reaching for his weapon. Half the Flames had picked up a knife or a longer blade; a woman was clutching a carved staff that could do horrible damage in skilled hands. With a bow—for lack of a better gesture—Aiden stepped closer. “Hodurac wants me to meet you all.”
Beside him, the leonthor shifted, lowering his head so his antlers stuck out close to Aiden’s shoulder.
“Hodurac enjoys bringing in new people. Sometimes he collects rebels from the mountains and tries to convince them to work with us.”
Aiden didn’t dare glance at the creature beside him; too close were the sharp ends of his antlers. So this wasn’t the first time—
“Not allow we will such talk,” Hodurac growled, silencing whoever had been about to speak.
Aiden wasn’t sure if the others had heard his words, though, or merely reacted to the sound coming out of that fanged maw.
“What is this place?” He lifted his hands, palms outward, and carefully stepped closer to the group, silently thanking Hodurac in his mind for healing his wounds the night before, as none of his movements ached.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone,” he repeated.
He sat down close by the cave wall, far enough from the group not to appear as a threat.
In his left palm, he summoned a few ice crystals, playing with them until they melted in the heat of the fire.
“I have magic of my own. Our interests are aligned.”
The woman at the far left of the fire cackled without humor. “We’ve seen magic wielders before who came to hunt us. They follow Ulder’s general and the ghost he sometimes sends into the mountains for spying.”
Lenya, perhaps. The Master of Whispers was the only person Aiden knew could project himself to other places—an image of himself or himself physically. It was unnerving, the knowledge that a ghost of the cruelest of them all could just pop up behind a random corner.
“He has magic, but he uses it to destroy. Tell me, stranger, how do you use your magic? Have you killed with it? Have you tortured? Have you betrayed?”
Aiden lowered his head. “All of that and worse.” Speaking this truth to someone who already thought the worst of him was a risk, but it was also a relief to unburden himself. “For a long time, I didn’t know right from wrong because I wasn’t taught. Revenge was the only truth I knew.”
The men who had half gotten to their feet, blades ready, sank back by the fire, but their grasps on their weapons didn’t loosen—yet.
“Have you killed fire wielders?” A woman with long gray hair and a heavy Naolapian accent wanted to know, and something told Aiden this was truly the only answer that mattered.
Slowly, he shook his head. “Actually, I have a friend who wields fire.”
The woman’s brows knitted together. “A friend, you say? Must be a close friend to share such a deadly secret.”
“Like a sister,” Aiden admitted, new ice crystals flashing at his fingertips. “I would give my life for her.”
That seemed to satisfy the woman. At a nod from her, the rest of the Flames lowered their weapons, and they waved him closer to the fire.
“Come on, boy,” she said, gesturing for him to sit next to her.
“We could use an ice wielder between all these hot-heads.” With another cackle, she started telling the story of the Flame-born exiles.
The last of their kind gathering in the mountains to one day take back their rights.
A people shunned and driven from their homes over the course of history. A people the King of Brestolya feared.