23. Chapter 23
Their swords now resheathed, Isla and Vaelin sat in companionable silence, listening to the sounds of the forest around them.
Sweaty and sore from sparring, Isla stared pensively into the trees.
Beside her, Vaelin looked a bit more relaxed than he had this morning as he stared at the mountain peaks and the rushing waterfalls beyond.
Isla pulled her gloves off, finger by finger, flexing and unflexing her now-stiff fingers.
Her eyes landed on her mother’s ring and she spun it once, twice, her thoughts drifting to the boy she’d healed in Brackenford.
He’d been stable this morning, thank the Gods, but he’d have a long road to full recovery.
“I can hear you thinking from here,” Vaelin’s voice rumbled across the clearing. She slid her eyes to his, expecting to see annoyance, but found curiosity instead.
“I was just thinking about that boy,” she said, picking at the dirt beneath her fingernails.
“He’s alive because of you,” Vaelin said.
She nodded. “A long road ahead, though.”
“It was important to you,” Vaelin said. “Healing the boy, I mean.”
Isla looked up, cocking her head slightly. “All my patients are important to me.”
Vaelin hummed an agreement. “But this one more so. Why?”
She swallowed, holding his stare, unnerved that he seemed to read her so easily when she struggled to interpret the mystery he so often presented as. She wasn’t sure why she said it, then — it seemed to slip past her lips without her permission. “He reminded me of Cael — my brother.”
Vaelin said nothing, just waited. Isla dropped her eyes to her hands again, to where she had been spinning her ring again, absentmindedly. Damn it.
“Cael’s older — only a few years younger than me. But he’s reckless, constantly putting himself in harm’s way…” she shook her head, “I worry about him all the time. More, since our parents died. He hasn’t… coped well. And now that I’ve left…”
“He’s a grown man,” Vaelin said, and Isla looked up to see a faint line of confusion etched between his brows. “Isn’t he?”
A prickle of irritation seeded itself beneath her skin. “I can still worry for him.”
“But he’s not your responsibility. He could be wed, with a family of his own by now.”
Isla scoffed darkly, “Cael’s more wed to the bottle these days.”
Vaelin fell quiet for a moment, as though processing her statement, and then said, “People grieve in their own ways. Some run — physically distance themselves from the grief that claws at them. Others distract,” he looked at her pointedly. “Some bury it, however they can.”
His words were so close to Gran’s that she found herself temporarily at a loss. She stared at his profile as he looked up to judge the angle of the sun, his dark hair dusting the deeply tanned skin of his face, slightly crooked nose, and high cheekbones.
Sensing her eyes on him, he turned, searching her face thoughtfully.
“What is it?” he asked.
“What if we make it to The City only to find that the Scholars know nothing more than we do?” The words fell out of her in a rush, like it was some sort of sacrilege to speak them into existence.
After another moment of quiet, he nodded. “I share the same worry, but…” he trailed off, looking again to the mountains in the distance.
“But?” she prompted.
The corner of his lips twitched, as they seemed to now and again. “But you continue to spark an ember of hope in me.” He turned then to look at her, his eyes lit with determination.
Her breath caught and she swallowed, unsure of how to respond to that.
“When we first met, I couldn’t fathom how a human healer could turn the tide of this calamity,” he continued, shaking his head slightly. “In truth, I still don’t. But, with each passing day, I wonder whether you are in fact stubborn enough to make anything happen.”
She laughed — a full, true laugh — and an answering smile ghosted across Vaelin’s lips, coaxing his dimple into existence.
She dropped her eyes to where she had wound her hand around the strap of her satchel.
“I think I know a few people who might agree with you,” she said, thinking of Oren and Cael.
She glanced back up to find his eyes still locked on her face. Stunned for a moment by the intensity in his eyes, she blew out a steadying breath before asking, “How is it that you got stuck with me, anyway?”
He raised a questioning eyebrow.
“I know you had that dream - vision - whatever. But… you’re a soldier, not a healer. Why not tell the fae healers what you saw and send one of them to track me down?”
Vaelin looked back to the mountains, rubbing a hand over his beard. “I was sent by the Starfire King. Actually,” he corrected himself, “I sort of volunteered myself for the job.”
Isla felt her pulse skip as she murmured,“Why would you do that?”
His eyes went unfocused, as though he’d slipped into a haunting memory as he spoke. “In part, to help a friend,” he began slowly. “In part… because I needed an excuse to get out of Vaelora.”
Isla felt her brow furrow. “The way you talk about it - the mountains, the wind - it doesn't seem like you’d be eager to leave.”
Vaelin nodded, his face sombre. “Sereth Starfire,” he cleared his throat, as though even saying the name aloud came with a forced effort.
“She was our High General. A renowned warrior, even among the Starfire. An incredible strategist. One of the most powerful wielders in centuries. And my mentor.” His voice was raw, as though dragged over gravel.
Isla felt her face pinch in sympathy as grief washed over him like a tide.
“She was also… the closest thing to a mother I’ve ever had.
” He took a slow, steadying breath before continuing.
“It was Sereth who was sent the first Dreamwalker vision - the one that warned of the looming calamity. She called for a meeting of the courts to share what she’d seen.
And then she fell ill — the cough, the fever.
Aurelia — my friend, a fae healer — tried, but it moved so fast. The day after my own vision, Sereth was burned alive from within by her power.
She just… ignited. Threw her burning body off a palace balcony to limit the collateral damage.
” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, “I’m no stranger to death.
I’m a soldier. I’ve watched men and women fall in battle and in duels, whether to blood lust or hubris, by steel or magic, but never for no reason at all, and never because their magic was tearing them apart from within. ”
Isla’s throat burned painfully as her eyes skated over Vaelin’s face, over the lines of grief furrowed deep into his skin and soul.
Inconsistencies slid into place, answers filling the places where cracks had been.
His brusque nature when they had first met, his urgency in wanting to reach Dunovar, and his frustration with her hesitation to leave Rowanmere.
In fact, the harsh, impatient man she’d verbally sparred with then contrasted sharply with the one she knew now after several days together on the road with a common goal.
She understood that all too well - the need to place her focus somewhere, to find the next step forward.
Like slipping on a pair of well-worn shoes, she recalled easily how raw she had felt in the wake of her parents' deaths, snapping at anyone who dared to come near her.
She winced, remembering how Cael and Lyra had taken the brunt of her grief-turned-anger — especially Lyra.
“Vaelin, I —”
Suddenly, Vaelin whipped his head up, feeling a shift in the wind.
The birdsong in the forest had grown silent.
He was on his feet before he was conscious of moving, every part of his body tingling with dread-soaked anticipation.
His body instantly flooded with tension and adrenaline as the air seemed to pulse around them. His fingers twitched.
“What —” Isla began.
“Get up,” he snapped. “Now. Move.”
Isla scrambled to her feet, throwing her satchel over her shoulder and tightening the straps of her harness. To her credit, she didn’t ask questions.
“I’ll get the horses,” she said, moving toward where the beasts danced and snorted, straining against their tethers.
“Leave them,” he snarled.
In his peripheral, he saw her look at him, surprise and confusion on her face. “Vaelin, what the hell is—”
The earth groaned beneath their feet, a thunderous rumble reverberating off the pines surrounding them. The horses whinnied in alarm.
One heartbeat. Two.
A crack cleaved the air like a sword, echoing off the mountains that rose in the distance. Close. Too close. The horses reared, snapping their tethers, and spun, fleeing into the forest leaving nothing but dust and flying gravel in their wake. Isla cried out.
And then everything was moving. The earth shuddered as though it was being pulled in all directions. Isla stumbled beside him, her knee colliding with the rocky earth. Vaelin kept his balance, every muscle as tight as a bowstring, his senses braced.
“Go!” he barked again, pushing her roughly toward the trail, even as he sent a spear of air searching, climbing up the falls that roared in the near distance.
The nearby river water began to churn, the sound rising like a hissing predator, but he kept his focus on assessing the threat as his magic skipped over the rushing falls, probing the mountain air above.
There. It settled beneath his skin as he paled, his wind recoiling. No.
He spun to face Isla, her green eyes widening with fear at his sudden pallor.
“Run!” he snarled.
For perhaps the first time since he’d known her, she obeyed, tearing back onto the forest trail. He ran behind her, sending a gust of wind at her back to urge her on, to make her steps lighter, easier. Her breathing was ragged, her strength flagging. Two strides. Then four.