Chapter 2
Somewhere in the trackless maze of shadowed valleys that lay between the towering peaks of the Yllian Mountains, a silver-furred storm cat stalked along a narrow game trail beneath the light of a waning moon.
Summer was nearly over, and the night air had grown teeth, but the cat seemed unbothered by the cold.
Or by anything else in those deadly woods.
It padded along in silence, not pausing to listen for other predators, or halting to catch the elusive scent of any creature brave enough to interrupt its midnight rambles.
It simply slunk forward, head hanging low, until it reached a rocky promontory overlooking the valley below.
Whereupon it glanced over its shoulder, sniffed the air, and flopped down with a distinctly un-feline grunt of annoyance.
Pretending you can’t hear me won’t fix anything.
The voice echoed between the cat’s ears, drawing a snarl in response.
Maybe it wouldn’t fix anything, but there was still something satisfying about stalking off in a huff. Even more satisfying to follow it up with a pitiful wallow in solitary misery.
It’s called pouting.
Immortal beings of great age and immense magic did not pout. They brooded. You’d think someone of Kel’s wisdom and status would know the difference.
I know you won’t listen, but I’m going to say it again anyway—you don’t have to do this, Xavi.
But he did. Not only because of the mountain, not only because of the oaths he’d sworn to Kel, but because what else was left for him? After so many years, so many lives, how could they give up now?
And the darker truth was, he had yet another motivation to remain loyal to his king. His own selfish reason not to walk away.
It was only in this place that he was still somewhat himself. Only in this valley—where the old magic still held sway—that he could cling to some vestige of the person he used to be, and only here that he could still remember his true name.
Xaviel ven Arazul. Commander of armies, guardian of the twilight lands, protector of the Rianor bloodline. First lieutenant and bodyguard to Keldreth ven Rianor, the last king of the Lycori elves.
Since they’d been old enough to talk, Kel had called him Xavi. It was the name of someone who remembered how to laugh. Someone who cared deeply about the fate of his people. Someone who remembered that life could be both beautiful and precious.
But once he left this place—once he emerged from the valley and entered the lands of night—he became something else entirely.
Lesh, they called him. Terrifying forest spirit and wearer of a thousand faces.
Names had power, and so long as he remained in the mortal world, he became ever closer to what they believed him to be—mercurial, merciless, and impulsive. Anxious, hungry, restless… mean. Untethered from the memories of the person he’d once been.
Out there, life was pitiful, painful, and short. And the longer he stayed away, the longer this cursed existence ate at what was left of his soul, until he was driven by nothing but the burning need to find her.
Find the Bride.
Find the one who could end this eternal vigil.
Or if not, find one who could buy them another hundred years.
How many had there been? How many times had he awakened from the madness only to realize that this curse had claimed yet another life?
It was never your curse. Kel’s mental voice was somehow raw with frustration. Never your mistake, and you should not have had to pay the price.
They’d had that argument so many times over the centuries. But neither of them could have anticipated the backlash from the magic Kel had used to save his people from certain death.
He’d sacrificed everything, only to live on in a tortured half-life. Condemned to be forgotten except as a story—romanticized and shared as a distant myth over cook fires and children’s bedtimes.
So, no, Xavi would not abandon his king or his task. The hundred years were nearly up, and after so much sacrifice, how could he quit? How could he let it all be in vain?
He would go, and he would find another bride. A human. Someone with a mortal life. Some innocent woman who would quiet the volcano and tie Kel to this world for another century. Or maybe… just maybe, this time she would be the one who would end it all.
He couldn’t remember how they knew to look for her. How they knew that one day a bride would finally bring their story to a close. Nor did he have any understanding of how she might do so.
Perhaps her coming would break the seal on the volcano, and it would erupt and kill them all, burying the lands of Dunmaren under a rain of fire and ash.
Or perhaps she would have the right kind of magic to seal it forever and set Kel free from his bondage.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the search. The gnawing desperation that would consume him until he found her at last and brought her back to this valley.
I know it’s hard to remember once you leave, but… she must be willing, Xavi. She has to understand what it all means. What she risks by coming here.
They had all been willing, in the end. For one reason or another. In his experience, all humans possessed either sufficient greed or sufficient despair to be tempted by such a wager.
So all he had to do was find a human woman. Age, wealth, beauty… Those things didn’t matter. She only needed to be desperate or delusional enough to return to the valley and risk her life and future for the possibility of unimaginable reward.
But to find her, he had to leave, and each time it grew more difficult to walk away from his memories of himself. He hated who he was becoming. Hated that he could do nothing to stop it. Nothing except break his vows, and that he would never do.
This time, perhaps he would go south. Or change shape to that of a wyvern, fly over the mountains, and patrol the coast, waiting for a shipwreck or a soldier of fortune.
He still regretted the loss of that female mercenary. It had been his own fault, too, and he doubted he would find another with that sort of magic again.
With one last tortured sigh, the cat rose to his feet, stretched, and then froze.
His ears twitched, and his head swiveled towards the south. He was hearing voices.
Sure sign of madness, Xavi, hearing things that aren’t there.
The cat snarled softly in response.
Yes, Kel was probably right. In truth, they had both gone mad centuries ago. And this place was punishingly remote. Very few ever came here, let alone at this time of year, with winter creeping closer.
But the cat’s ears did not lie the way an elf’s might. He could still hear voices, and they were not in his own head. They were somewhere out there in the moonlit woods… and they were arguing.
Curiosity intruded momentarily on the compulsion to complete his mission, so Xaviel leaped down from the ledge and made his way silently downslope.
When he reached the cover of the trees, he padded along through the shadows, making no more noise than a night breeze as he approached the bickering intruders.
Was that…
His ears sharpened, every sense suddenly on alert as he identified at least six separate voices. And one of them… One of them was unmistakably female.
Surely it could not be this easy. In all the long centuries of this cursed existence, a potential bride had never simply arrived on the doorstep and presented herself to be sacrificed.
Crouching low to the ground, the cat crept nearer and nearer, soundless and invisible under the cover of darkness, until he could smell wood smoke, catch the flicker of firelight, and glimpse the owners of those raised voices.
“I’ve already paid you for three months,” the female said, her tone sharp with unmistakable protest. Human, Xavi noted with a visceral thrill of satisfaction. A human female. Right here under his nose.
“And that time is nearly half gone,” a burly human male countered. He wore the leather and weapons of a soldier—a mercenary, from the sound of things. “And even if you had all the money in the world, you couldn’t pay us to go any deeper into these cursed lands.”
“I told you exactly where we were going when I hired you.”
Despite being outnumbered and surrounded by frustrated males twice her size, the female remained undaunted.
Defiant, even. Her arms were folded, and her foot was tapping with annoyance beneath the heavy folds of her skirts.
She was neatly dressed and entirely unarmed.
Neither strong nor athletic—in short, not the sort of female Xavi would have expected to find this deep in the inhospitable mountain terrain.
“You cannot go back on our agreement now,” she continued. “I paid you the entire amount in advance!”
“More fool you,” the large human mercenary retorted. “But, like I said, we won’t leave you if you turn back now. You can’t claim we’ve gone back on our word, as it’ll take nearly the remainder of our three months to return to Iria.”
“It won’t,” the woman insisted, glaring at the heavily armed men without a trace of fear or caution.
“We’ve been climbing for weeks, and that takes far longer than descending.
What with all the circling and doubling back, we can continue on for at least two or three more weeks before it becomes necessary to turn around. ”
She was right in most respects. Climbing did take longer. But if they intended to go much higher into the mountains, the next few weeks came with a growing risk of early autumn snow.
“You can,” the mercenary leader agreed with a shrug.
“But come morning, my crew and I are returning to human lands. These mountains give me the creeps, and the farther we go, the bigger the monsters are going to get. I’m not losing my whole crew just so some spoiled princess can chase her dreams. If you want to keep hunting ghosts so you can vindicate a dead man, go ahead. ”
“But… I paid you!”
Helpless fury radiated from the golden-haired female, and Xavi wondered curiously whether it was possible for humans to disintegrate from pure, overwhelming rage.