Chapter 28 Valenna
Chapter twenty-eight
Valenna
The pass was so narrow, Hera’s belly almost touched the stone walls to the left and right, and her big head kept turning to glare at Evander as he urged her onward.
Sitting behind Evander, her arms wrapped around his body, Valenna swung between hope and dread.
One minute, she was confident Cobblepine would have the powder and a pair of wyverns, guaranteeing a long and beautiful life with the man she loved.
The next, she was spiraling into a well of despair so deep she thought she might drown in it.
She rested her chin on his shoulder. “What do you envision? If we could be together, what do you imagine it would be like?”
He gazed at her, contemplating, then said, “A little chaotic, I think. We’d have too many pets, and neither of us would do the dishes because we’d be too busy with the dracorium in our backyard. But it would be a beautiful chaos—the kind I imagine in happy homes.”
“What about children?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“Eventually, I’d like children. But for a while, I’d just want you.”
He smiled, and he looked hopeful. The happiest she’d ever seen him. And it filled her with terror.
“What do you picture?” he asked.
“Just that,” she said. “Except I’d like to live near the sea.”
“We can arrange that, I think.”
She squeezed him, kissed his neck, and she’d never felt so soldered to him. Iron melted into steel.
“What about our kingdoms?” she whispered.
“We stay out of the war,” he said. “We forget about our parents and stay hidden.”
“I can’t simply forget what my father did, can I? Should I?”
He considered this, then said tentatively, “It seems this magic does more harm to you than it’s ever done to him. Wouldn’t you be happier if you let go of your past and focused on the future?”
Her rage at her father was a deeply rooted tree, grown all around her heart, but she did not know how to dig it out. Valenna watched Raska dive after a goat perched on a ledge overhead. The old bird had followed them from Whyspenware, keeping her distance.
“We’re running away from that life,” Evander continued. “That’s why we left.”
This was ever Evander’s strategy, it seemed. When the water was too hot, he moved on to cooler pools. But that wasn’t why Valenna left Sennalaith. She left so she could hone her magic, a knife on a wheel, until she was ready to punish her father with it. She wasn’t running, just couching in wait.
It was odd how calmly Evander, so bent on avoiding trouble, shouldered the knowledge that a sudden, blinding stroke of death could take him at any moment.
But was it trouble he ran from? She’d seen him stride up to too many snarling dragons to suspect that kind of cowardice. Or any cowardice at all, really. No, it was something more complex that she couldn’t isolate.
“Raska is fading,” Evander continued, looking up at the sky.
“But whenever she does a favor for my mother, my mother uses magic to revive her, but only enough to keep Raska desperate, always returning for more. I think Raska believes that taking me to Marwenna will earn her something more permanent, that lasts longer than a few weeks.”
“And your mother is a necromancer?”
Evander huffed. “She says that because the Ashkendoric people worship and revere death, and she has built herself up to be the death god’s emissary. But really, she has botanical powers, not unlike you.”
Valenna didn’t like that comparison one bit. “So how does she revive the dead? If she isn’t a real necromancer?”
Evander shrugged. “She has a magical tree or something. I don’t know.”
“Do you think Raska followed me from Largotia, hoping I would lead her to you?”
Again, Evander shrugged. His nonchalance irked her.
“Raska is old, and she has old magic. She probably knew that we’d find our way to one another.
If I return to Ashkendor, Marwenna will make me fight again, or execute me as a traitor.
Both equally distasteful. I don’t fear my mother, but I’ve had my fill of war.
“I need you to understand something, Val. I would rather slit my own throat than return to Ashkendor.”
Valenna shuddered. “Don’t say that!”
“It’s the truth. When I die, bury me before Raska can get me. I can’t go back to Ashkendor, dead or alive.”
Stunned, she just stared at him.
“Promise me,” he said, “that you won’t let Raska take me.”
“But if your mother could revive you …”
“It wouldn’t work.” His voice was harsh. “When we do run out of wyvern bone powder—be that next week or in ten years—you are not to imagine you can save me by handing me over to Raska.”
She glanced away because the thought had occurred to her. Several times. It had been a comfort, even.
“Alright, I promise,” Valenna said, an edge of irritation in her voice. “But it doesn’t matter, because you’re not going to die.”
They fell into a grim silence, and Valenna fought a gathering terror that her passion for Evander was a doomed passion; their love a doomed love.
When did forbidden romances ever end happily?
She sorted through every fairytale and nursery song in her father’s library as she watched the gray stone slipping past.
“Do you think happiness is ever permanent?” she asked gloomily.
Evander’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t know. That’s why we should enjoy what we have now.”
She wished they’d stayed on the subject of their chaotic house by the sea.
Something groaned behind them—just the mountain growling again, Valenna thought. But when she glanced over her shoulder, the pathway behind them was closing, the walls warping together like clay on a potter’s wheel.
Hera charged forward with a panicked bellow, but the path in front of them began to close as well. Valenna looked around, frantic for a way out, when another path opened to her right. She pointed to it, shouting, “There, Van!”
Evander tried to direct Hera toward it, but she fought him until she, too, saw the opening and sprang into it, scraping her side against the wall.
Valenna’s leg caught, and before Evander could catch her, she was falling.
Her back struck the ground, and she rolled, the breath knocked from her lungs. Hera charged on without her.
The wall clattered shut behind her, and Valenna leaped up and sprinted toward the open path.
Ahead, Evander jumped from Hera and ran back, trying to reach her.
She was almost to safety when her neck jerked.
She screamed, tugging against her hair, but she couldn’t move—her braid caught in the closing walls.
Evander slammed into the wall beside her, his shoulder braced against the stone as it ate its way up her braid. He drew his knife.
“Hold still,” he said, slicing the blade behind her head. She realized what he was doing too late.
“Don't!” she shrieked as he slashed through her hair.
Evander grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him toward the quiet opening of the second path.
The walls scraped at her heels. He gripped her waist and threw himself forward, carrying her with him.
They landed hard, skidding across the rough ground.
Like puzzle pieces fitting together, the old path slammed shut just beyond their feet, and the mountain fell silent again.
Valenna leaned against Evander’s chest, panting.
“You alright?” he asked, his arm tightening around her ribs.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“What?” he demanded, his eyes wide with worry. “Are you hurt?”
“No, my hair.”
He wiped his hand down his face. “Oh, good grief, Val!”
“No, I mean it! I love my hair.”
He shook his head, smiling. “Sit up and let me see.”
She sat up, her ribs aching, and he unfastened her braid and ran his fingers through her dark tresses.
“It’s completely beautiful, like everything about you.”
“I’m serious, Vander, how much did you have to cut?”
“Only enough to keep you from getting turned two-dimensional!”
She pulled her hair forward and studied it. It wasn’t terrible—still long enough to reach her shoulder blades, but the ends were hacked.
“It could be worse,” she said sadly.
“Yes, a lot worse. You could be smeared into the mountain like jam on toast.”
“Gracious, why do you have to put it like that?”
He placed his hands on either side of her face and said, “To keep everything in perspective, ya lunatic.”
The mountain groaned again, and they both flinched.
“Let’s keep moving,” Evander said, standing and pulling her to her feet.
She longed to ask him if he was alright—if he was dizzy or seeing double or bleeding—but she knew he would say he was fine and press on like always.
The man was so infuriatingly stoic, she wondered if she’d get any warning before he fell over dead or if he would simply collapse one day at the breakfast table.
She shoved these thoughts aside and followed him to where Hera was waiting, trembling like a horse caught in a thunderstorm.
Ten minutes later, the path closed again. This time, Valenna was watching for a second path to open, and they jumped onto it before anyone needed an impromptu haircut.
“I thought you’d been here before,” Valenna said after their third narrow escape.
“I flew,” Evander said. “So I didn’t have to manage this.”
They traveled until the sun dipped behind the peaks, bathing the mountainside in a pink blush. It brought out the touch of red in Evander’s hair.
Then all at once, like curtains on a theater stage, the narrow gray walls fell away, and they stopped on a lip of rock jutting out into the open air.
Hera’s front foot slipped, and she scrambled for her footing, grunting indignantly.
Her big head swiveled to glare at Evander as if to say, “See what you’ve made me do? ”
Before them lay a hollow in the mountain. Rocky ground rose from a sky-blue lake to a stone and thatch village. The buildings stretched from the lakeshore to the base of the mountain wall, then clambered up the rock face, suspended in the air by chains.
Flying dragons soared overhead, aquatic species splashed and swam in the sparkling water, and land dragons with thick armored plates plodded down suspended wooden walkways between caves high up in the walls.
With a rush of wings, a dragon descended from above and obstructed their view.
Mounted on the dragon was a woman with gray braids and a face too young to match them.
She was tall and wiry, with broad shoulders, tanned brown skin, and almond eyes like Valenna’s.
She carried herself with an air of unwavering command.
“Evander Trevelyan,” she said, her expression stony. “What do you think you’re doing back in Cobblepine?”
“Ariadne Augmendene,” Evander replied. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Let me see your tattoo.”
Valenna glanced at Evander. He was tense, his shoulders bunched.
“We need to speak in private,” he said.
“Oh, yes, we do. Is that Hera?” Ariadne Augmendene asked.
“She’s grown, hasn’t she?”
Ariadne nodded. “Excessively.”
“She’s fat and spoiled,” Valenna muttered.
Ariadne, who hadn’t paid Valenna any heed, snapped her attention to her now. “And who is this?”
“This is Valenna Castanaia,” Evander said.
“Wife?” Ariadne asked shortly.
“Betrothed,” Evander replied.
A bubble of warmth swelled in Valenna’s chest at the term.
Dismounting her dragon, Ariadne joined them on the pathway, then led the way along the long sloping path toward the village.