38. Chapter 38
At the sound of Aurelia’s gasp, Isla and Vaelin had hurried back into the main room to find the Shifter unconscious again, and Aurelia dragging a hand across her sweaty brow.
“What happened?” Vaelin had demanded.
“He came to. I punched him,” Aurelia had answered.
After that, Vaelin had insisted on binding the Shifter’s wrists and ankles for the journey to The City despite Isla’s insistence that it was unlikely he’d have enough strength to be dangerous should he regain consciousness.
Vaelin would not be cowed, however, and ultimately she agreed to have her patient bound like a prisoner.
With the first light of dawn, the storm had cleared, the formidable sandstone wall that formed a perimeter around The City just barely visible in the distance.
Isla sagged with relief, but the feeling had been short-lived as they began the laborious chore of dragging the Shifter’s unconscious body along with them through the sands.
Though The City appeared close, the sands seemed to stretch interminably, making the hours-long trip feel like days.
Even with the makeshift sled Vaelin had fashioned from materials he’d scavenged in Vathansa, dragging the weight of the Shifter through the shifting sands was incredibly physically challenging.
Vaelin did most of the work as Evric trudged at the rear of their party, silently fuming for the duration of the journey.
But at last, they had made it. The sandstone wall stretched high above them as they halted at the opulent gates, the iron inlaid with glass that reflected the beaming sunlight.
Amid the domed towers that topped the walls at regular intervals, guards peered down at their party through almond-shaped eyes.
Like Isla and the others, they wore fabric around their faces to guard against the blowing sands.
But these garments covered all but the guards’ eyes, gossamer fabric wound tight around their heads and faces, widening into long, broad swaths of fabric that fluttered behind them in the wind like featherlight cloaks.
They wore robes made of a similar fabric, no doubt designed to be lightweight and breathable while still protecting their skin from the assault of the sun’s rays.
All of their garb was the same creamy, earthy tone, allowing them to blend in to both the sandstone and the desert itself.
The only exception was the brown leather vambraces they bore on their forearms and matching leather belts at their waists.
They were armed, long spears across their backs and curved, wicked looking scimitars sheathed at their hips.
“Who are they?” Isla asked quietly.
“The gate guards,” Aurelia replied, but Isla didn’t miss the tightness in her voice, nor the uneasy look that Vaelin and Evric exchanged.
“What’s wrong?” Isla asked.
“They’re armed,” Vaelin replied.
“Is that strange?”
He hummed, a low rumble in his chest. “It’s… unusual.”
“What business do you have in The City?” one of the guards called down to them.
Vaelin stepped forward. “We’re here to seek the wisdom of the Scholars regarding strange happenings across the realms.”
The guard cocked his head, his dark, almond-shaped eyes surveying each of them, snagging on the Shifter’s prone form, before returning to Vaelin. “We weren’t notified that anyone was coming. The shuttle doesn’t run for another month. How did you traverse the sands?”
“We crossed on foot.”
The guard’s brows lifted, then pinched together as his eyes flicked over their party once more.
An interminable silence passed, Isla shifting nervously as the sun overhead beat down upon them.
It had never occurred to her that their urgent, non-traditional crossing of the sands might cloak them in suspicion for those who dwelled here.
The guard surveyed them warily. “Strange happenings you say… indeed. Some things have been Seen that can't be unseen, these past months.” He shifted where he stood, seeming to weigh their presence against some knowledge or instinct. “You’ll forgive us for being wary of strangers who have crossed the sands on foot. It is… an infrequent occurrence. We’ll need to confirm—”
“No need,” the voice was clear and calm, commanding without requiring volume.
At his side, a graceful, aged woman draped in striking robes of gold stepped into the light, her striking silver hair piled artfully on top of her head.
“I have been expecting them,” she said. “Fetch a stretcher for their friend.”
To Isla’s left, Evric growled at the shifter being referred to as their friend, and Vaelin shot him a warning look.
An unmistakeable air of authority swirled around the woman as the guards rushed to do her bidding.
The iron gates opened slowly, metal mechanism screeching in protest. Four guards emerged, a stretcher in tow.
With the ease of those who had not been travelling for more than a week, they lifted the Shifter’s enormous body onto the stretcher.
“Come,” the woman clipped, having descended the watch tower.
This close, Isla could see that she was tall and slight, though she certainly did not exude frailty.
She moved as though accustomed to being followed without question, turning toward The City that lay beyond the wall.
The guards towing the stretcher fell into step behind the woman instantly, and Isla glanced at Vaelin, an eyebrow raised.
He nodded, his jaw still tight, but she could sense the relief that settled over him as they passed through the gates.
They had made it — he had gotten them here. Alive.
They walked in silence behind the mysterious woman and the guards, who mercifully carried the Shifter the entirety of the journey through the City.
While the towering walls blocked the worst of the winds, it provided no protection from the sun’s assault.
A breeze blew through the city streets, sending banners and clothing flapping, but it was warm - almost hot - and did little to provide cooling.
For what felt like the millionth time, Isla swiped the back of her hand across her sweaty brow, wincing as she dragged sharp grains of sand across it.
All around them, buildings made of sandstone rose, tall and narrow.
It seemed almost as if The City had grown out of the very dunes it nestled within.
The buildings would have blended into the sands, near invisible, if not for the breathtaking stained glass windows that peppered their walls.
Despite the exhaustion that pulled at her, Isla couldn’t help her jaw from slackening as her eyes drank in the striking, intricate designs, the colours casting beams of light across the cobbled streets.
“I told you they were artisans,” Aurelia murmured.
Isla nodded mutely as they moved through The City.
It was sprawling — much larger than Isla had expected, despite the size of the walls that surrounded it.
Dunovarians milled about, their long robes fluttering in the light breeze as they whispered along the carved stone roads.
They peered at the newcomers with what seemed like minor curiosity, but said nothing to them.
Isla watched as a young child darted across their path, tilting his head at Isla and the fae with inquisitiveness.
Then his eyes fell upon the mysterious woman that led their party through the city streets, and his eyes widened.
The woman murmured something to the child in a warm tone, and Isla watched as he turned and darted back into a nearby building.
Her gaze snagged then, on a shock of shiny black along the road that winked in the sun’s beams. It was more of the natural, uncut glass she had marvelled over in the ruins of Vathansa.
But here, it had been welded into the roads themselves, coaxed into straight or gently curving borders, rather than the wild, random spiderwebbing Isla had seen in the dunes.
She was so entranced by the glasswork, she jumped when Aurelia gently tugged on her arm.
Isla looked up to see they had arrived before the most strikingly beautiful building she had ever seen.
The sandstone walls of Dunovar’s academy seemed to climb into the sky itself, the sprawling building marked with multiple turrets.
Like all other buildings in Dunovar, the turrets were capped with rounded roofs to allow the sand to slide off and to prevent the build up that would have made slanted or flat roofs unfeasible.
At the very centre of the building, an enormous dome rose, the unfathomable expanse of stained glass sparkling in the sun.
Isla’s breath hitched as she stared at the Great Library.
She tugged the scarf from her face as the woman led them through the main doors of the building, relishing in the feel of the cooler air on her skin.
They crossed the open foyer, moving down a corridor to the west. The woman moved with purpose, her golden robes sweeeping the stone floors, billowing in her wake.
“These are the Scholars' dorms,” she explained, halting about halfway down the hallway. “You may make use of these five rooms. Tomorrow, we will speak further. Today, you will want to focus on your patient. I will send some of our own healers to assist.” She nodded to the Shifter’s unconscious form as the gate guards ferried the stretcher through the first door on their left.
Isla knew she should follow, but found herself unable to look away from the Dunovarian woman, staring as if transfixed. She seemed strangely familiar, though Isla was certain she had never seen her before. The words slipped out before she could stop them.
“Who are you?”
The woman tilted her head ever so slightly, her expression perfectly blank though her golden eyes seemed to flash with amusement. Her stare flicked over Isla, snagging briefly on her hands, caked in a mixture of blood, sand, and grime.
“I am called Asmarin,” she said simply. "I will send for you tomorrow. Then, I will answer all of your questions to the best of my ability.”
And with that, the strangely ethereal woman walked away, leaving them standing in the hallway.
Isla stared after her retreating form, feeling oddly off-balance.
She glanced to Vaelin, but he was watching the woman retreat with a similar expression on his face.
And then a voice from behind them cut through the tenuous silence.
“Asmarin is the Head Seer and Director of the Great Library. And my mentor.”
It sent a spear through Isla’s heart, the voice as familiar to her as her own.
Her chest tightened as she spun to face her sister.
Lyra stood in the centre of the hallway, hugging a stack of leather bound books to her chest. She was exactly as Isla remembered her, though somehow simultaneously changed.
In place of Terravernian garb, she now wore Scholars' robes.
But she appeared to be perfectly healthy. Perfectly whole.
Isla was moving before she had consciously made the decision to, brushing past Vaelin to embrace her sister fiercely. Lyra stiffened at the contact, then relaxed, her arms folding around Isla mechanically as several of her books toppled to the floor.
"Gods, it's good to see you," Isla said, her voice rough with emotion as tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She pulled back, framing Lyra's face - so much like her own - in her hands as she drank her sister in.
"What are you doing here?" Lyra asked.
"It's a long story," Isla said, brushing away a tendril of hair, too short to be bound into the braid that wound tightly around Lyra's head. Lyra flinched away from the touch as a child would from a fussing mother. Isla pushed down the twinge of hurt. “You don’t seem that surprised to see me.”
“Asmarin Saw you coming,” Lyra said.
“Oh,” Isla said, her mind drifting back to the mysterious Seer. She shook her head, refocusing, smiling at her sister. “I’m just so happy you're healthy.”
"You can't tell if someone's healthy just by looking at them," Lyra said, her brow knitting in confusion.
Isla smiled. “True. Are you healthy?”
“Yes,” Lyra replied simply. “How did you get here? The next shuttle doesn't leave for weeks.”
“We came on foot,” Isla said.
Lyra laughed dryly, then sobered.
"How?" she asked again.
"I had some help,” Isla said, gesturing to the fae standing behind her.
It struck her then how wildly out of place they all looked.
Vaelin and Evric were taller than every passing Scholar by at least a foot, corded with muscle and covered head to toe in sand and sweat, deadly weapons sheathed at their hips.
Aurelia was slightly less conspicuous, though she too bore the grime of travel, her clothing torn in places where she and Isla had made makeshift bandages to stave off the worst of the Shifter's bleeding.
Dried blood flaked off what remained of her tunic.
Isla was just as filthy as the rest of them.
“These are my friends: Aurelia, Vaelin, and Evric,” she said, motioning to each in turn.
As they each nodded in greeting, Lyra stared at them, her face blank.
"Your friends," she repeated, flatly.
Isla bristled, fighting the irritation that needled beneath her skin. “Yes. Is it so hard to believe I have friends?”
“No,” said Lyra, “but it's wildly inconsistent.”
“What is?”
“You, having fae friends. You hate the fae.”
Isla felt a flush heat the back of her neck. “I do not hate the fae,” she said through gritted teeth.
"Yes, you do,” Lyra countered.
"I don't have time for this," Isla snapped.
A small, sad smile crossed Lyra's lips. "No, you never do," she said simply.
It felt like a knife to Isla's heart.
“Lyra—” she began.
"Let me guess," Lyra cut her off, "You have a patient."
Isla flinched. How many times had she said those words to Lyra? How many times had she put her work first?
“We'll have time to talk later, I promise. I'll explain everything,” she said, squeezing Lyra's hand. "Where can I find you?"
Lyra sighed, and it made her sound older than her twenty-one years. Stooping to gather her books, she said, "My room is the first on the right.” She gestured to the end of the hallway where they had entered. “I’ll be in the library until nightfall.”
Casting a final, silent glance over the fae standing behind Isla, Lyra turned, heading for the library.
The soft footfalls of her slippered feet whispered along the stone hallway as Isla watched her go, books clutched to her chest like armour.
It was such a familiar image. Her throat tightened painfully.
"Isla," Vaelin's voice was gentle at her shoulder.
"I'm fine," she lied.