6. Chapter 6
The moon and stars lit the way as Vaelin, Evric, and Aurelia made their way across the causeway, the wind whipping at their cloaks.
Vaelin breathed deep, welcoming the wind into his bones.
Above them, the Starfire palace loomed in the dark, its spires and balconies silhouetted against the moonlight.
Evric stretched, clasping his hands behind his head. “I still think Seeley wanted to leave with me. It’s your fault I’ll be sleeping alone tonight,” he said to Aurelia, narrowing his eyes at her.
She scoffed. “Does it ever occur to you that someone might not want to go home with you?”
“No,” Evric said.
Vaelin huffed a sharp laugh under his breath as Aurelia shook her head in disbelief, an amused smile dancing across her lips.
“It probably has more to do with where I’m sleeping tonight,” Evric mused, grimacing at the palace gates that loomed before them. He turned to Vaelin, “Maybe I should’ve asked to borrow your place. Assuming it hasn’t crumbled to dust?”
Vaelin shrugged, “Your guess is as good as mine.”
It was true that he owned a house in Vaelastris, tucked into the shadows of Cirella’s estate.
There was nothing wrong with it -- apart from being twice as large and half as comfortable as he would have liked -- but Vaelin hadn’t set foot there in years.
When he’d received the King’s summons to attend Court, he had opted to take him up on his offer of rooms at the palace, where he’d be conveniently close to both the training yard and the council chamber — Gods help him.
The trio had hardly stepped foot in the ornate entrance hall before a servant came rushing down the winding spiral staircase calling for Aurelia, her expression anxious.
“You must come quickly! It’s the children. Lord Terrin sent me to fetch you and I’ve been looking everywhere!”
Vaelin watched a pang of guilt cross Aurelia’s face as she rushed after the servant, concern etched deep into her brow. He felt Evric’s eyes and turned to meet his gaze, feeling the same disquiet he saw there sink deep into his bones.
Vaelin had returned to his borrowed rooms, sleep taking him mere minutes after his head touched the pillow…
Coughing rang throughout Vaelastris, slipping out from behind shuttered windows that rattled in the winds. Doors to shops and taverns were barred, banners flapping with abandon. The wind felt wild in a way that made Vaelin’s stomach turn.
The vision shifted then, the familiar Windborne mountain range melting into another.
Gone were the falls and snowcapped peaks in favour of the ash-covered, jagged mountains that separated Vaelora from Askeldrath.
Even in Cindrath's harsh climate, the coughing of the Fireborne filled the air.
A thick, billowing wind swept heat through the war camps, sending tents snapping.
A soldier limped by, supported by two others from his battalion.
Faster now, the vision blurred into the Waterborne's coastal vistas. Vessels rocked, abandoned in the port city of Mistfall, the seas whipping waves violently against the shore. Small candles that burned with blue flame, their flickering mimicking the shifting of the seas, sat in countless windows — the waterwielders’ custom for marking and honouring a death in the family.
The waves blurred, giving way to a far-reaching plain — no, not a plain.
A valley. Glenaura without its lush landscape was jarring.
So much brown did not suit the Earthborne city.
The ivy was dry and wilted, the naked, twisted bark climbing up buildings like gnarled fingers.
A woman crouched in a yard coated in dry pine needles, crying quietly into her hands.
The sound of a punishing cough rang through the window of the home, unmistakably belonging to a child.
Vaelin stepped forward, and the vision swam again, the low mountains bordering Glenaura now giving way to rolling hills, the sparse pines replaced with dense forests.
He turned, taking in the timber and stone cottages, drenched in greenery.
But even in Terravern, where earth magic thrummed strongest, the trees had turned early, their leaves yellowing and curling in on themselves as though recoiling.
Here, too, coughing rang out like an ominous siren.
Human healers rushed between cottages. One healer in particular paused as if to listen, glancing over her shoulder and her eyes met his.
Their gazes locked, and his chest tightened inexplicably.
Tendrils of her light brown hair whipped free of their knot in the wind, her striking, jade green eyes sharp and appraising.
A small crescent-shaped scar sat above her left eyebrow.
She stared at him, unblinking, and… angry?
His heart hammered, deafening, in his ears, louder, louder...
Vaelin jerked awake, covers twisted around his legs, and a pounding on his door. Hastily, he kicked off the sheets, striding quickly across the room to wrench it open.
Aurelia stood in the threshold, pale and trembling.
“Aurelia, what —”
“The children,” she whispered, her voice shaking, “The boys.”
Vaelin reached for her wrist, tugging her lightly through the doorway and into the warmth of his room.
She let him, moving mechanically. He had seen soldiers in shock on the battlefield before, but never Aurelia.
For years, she had been the steady hand they’d all needed in the war camps.
A memory flashed in his mind: Evric screaming, his left thigh in shreds, crimson soaking through the balled up tunic Vaelin had pressed hastily to the wound, his teeth gritted.
Then Aurelia had been there, her hands glowing faintly as she snapped at Evric to shut up and sit still.
Despite the gore and panic, she’d never flinched, weaving together both Evric’s flesh and a bond that had tied the three of them together ever since.
Now, she stood silent before him, her eyes unseeing. Vaelin waited a beat before touching her cheek lightly, as if to remind her that he stood before her.
She startled, her eyes — haunted and red-rimmed — snapping to his. “Terrin’s children. There was nothing I could do. It —” she said, her voice cracking, “it was like the very life was being drawn out of them and back into the Earth.”
A beat of stunned silence passed and then Vaelin pulled her to his chest, murmuring assurances into her hair as she clung to him, sobbing. Nausea roiled in his stomach as he considered the impact of her words. Dead? How long had she said they’d been sick for? A week? Less?
Suddenly she pulled away, her blue eyes swimming with anguish. “That’s not why I’m here. You have to come, Vaelin.”
He nodded without question. “Where?”
She swallowed, voice wavering, “It’s Sereth.”
Vaelin blinked. The edges of his vision darkened, and for a moment, his heartbeat was all he could hear, thrumming in his ears. Gradually, Aurelia’s voice reached for him through the din.
“ —thought you’d want to come. I know what she means to you,” she said.
Vaelin jerked suddenly into motion, nodding stiffly as he stepped around Aurelia.
He said nothing as he snatched a tunic off of the floor and tore it over his head.
Mechanically, he strapped on his sword belt and raked a hand through his hair, still damp with sweat in the aftermath of his own disturbing dream.
He looked to Aurelia, who stared back at him, expression grim.
Quickly, they made their way through the palace, their footfalls echoing ominously off the high stone walls in the quiet of the early dawn.
Vaelin scrubbed a hand over his face, his body aching with fatigue, but his mind raced with dour visions of what state they might find Sereth in.
He tried to steel himself - it’s what she would expect of him, and rarely did he fail to meet those expectations.
The winds swept through the open arches along the corridor, sending their clothes rippling in its wake.
It was typically one of the few things Vaelin found comforting about the palace, but today, even the wind felt foreboding.
Seized by a sudden need, Vaelin grasped Aurelia’s forearm, puling her to an abrupt stop.
“I had a dream,” his voice was low and quiet, and Aurelia tilted her head in question. He bowed his head slightly, recounting his dream under his breath. A fine line deepened between her brows as she listened intently.
When he finished speaking, Aurelia held his gaze, unflinching. “Do you think it was like —”
“Yes,” he clipped. She loosed a sharp exhale, and nodded. And that was all he needed to know she believed him wholeheartedly. They kept walking.
Something minute relaxed in Vaelin now that he’d said it out loud.
But it did nothing to quell the tension that had his muscles wound so tight he feared they’d split at the first sign of danger.
He fisted his hands at his sides, mind racing.
Sereth was ill. Sereth was ill. His thoughts were a windstorm.
He bit his lip against the rising panic as his chest tightened and the metallic taste of blood sent his mind reeling back decades…
He wiped his jaw where the blow had landed, spitting blood onto the flagstone.
“You’re dropping your shield arm. Again.” She snapped, irritably. “You cannot rely on your magic to do your job for you. I will not have you falling in battle for as stupid a reason as dropping your shield arm.”
“Why do you care so much?” Vaelin snapped, all fire and bruised ego. ”I’m just another soldier, more Askeldrath fodder.’
Within a breath, Sereth had him pinned against the unforgiving stone wall with a forearm, his feet lifted clear off the ground as his sword clattered to the cobblestones.”
“Not to me,” she snarled, silver eyes flashing. “You are not disposable.”
She dropped him suddenly, and he staggered as his feet hit the ground.
“Now hold your shield arm, soldier.”