EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (74 page)

After Varago and Jemely returned home, I went downstairs.

Mother looked weary, but she forced a smile when she saw me. ‘There’s a gravesite behind Frooby’s house.’

I looked at Hawrald standing silently in the corner of the room. ‘Can we go for a walk?’

He nodded.

The clouds had parted, allowing stars to shine through, and the moon cast an eerie glow on the over the icy landscape. The soldier’s armour gleamed under the moonlight, and lights lit up the windows of Borrelia houses. The tavern was still buzzing with music and singing, and I wondered whether Healer Euka would get any sleep. The world would go on despite Frooby’s passing. The world wouldn’t miss him as I would.

Frooby’s farmhouse looked ominous in the pale light. Wolves howled in the distance, their cries echoing the cries of my heart—haunting, sorrowful, angry. We found a track that led between a chicken hutch and a workshop. Farther back were five carved tombstones. One had fresh flowers, and I stepped over a small fence that served as more of a decoration than a way to keep out people and animals.

‘Frooby, gentle and honourable, a loved son,’ the soldier read aloud.

I slumped to the ground, put my head in my hands, and cried. I tried not to make too much sound, afraid Derkal would find me at his son’s grave and curse me. It was my fault Frooby was dead. Derkal was right to hate me. Perhaps if I had insisted on my healing him that last day we met, he would have allowed me to carry through with my plan. He would be alive, and even if I had gone to Meligna, I wouldn’t have this guilt pressing on my soul.

My body jolted as each sob escaped my lips. I leaned over, placing one hand on his tomb stone for support. I hated what I was.

‘Let’s go,’ I said bitterly, full of self-loathing.

My grief sucked the last of my energy, and I struggled to walk. My guard offered me his arm, and I took it, leaning on him as I had leaned on many people in the past. I thought about how I could make amends for my friend’s death.

He should have been healed. It should have been given to him, freely. The poor had as much right to be well as the rich. I decided I would use my time in Meligna to learn about the healers. I would be a spy for King Erageo, and I would risk my life to know all the Queens’ secrets. There was an illness much worse than anything I had ever seen, and that was the sickness of my country, the sickness of Senya caused by the division of the North and South.

And I was determined to cure it.

Adenine’s journey continues in…

Blood Healing
 

…Book #2 of the Healers of Meligna series.

Afterword

K. J. C
OLT
WRITES
EPIC
fantasy with a psychological twist by threading common psychological pathologies such as depression into her storylines to create deeper, more realistic characters.

Her favourite writers are Kristin Cashore, Robin Hobb, Trudi Canavan and Maria V. Snyder. K. J. Colt has an honours degree in psychology and counselling, enjoys road trips, gaming (Skyrim/Civilisation/Assassin's Creed/Bioshock), music festivals (electronica), playing pool, yoga, bushwalking, and gobbles up anything fantasy-related. Favourite fantasy shows include Game of Thrones, X-Files, House of Cards, Homeland, Hannibal, Trueblood, IT Crowd and anything created by Hayao Miyazaki.

You can sign up for her newsletter to receive news about new releases and giveaways.
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Concealed Power is book #1 of a five part series called The Healers of Meligna.

Concealed Power (The Healers of Meligna, Book #1) Released.

Blood Healing (The Healers of Meligna, Book #2) Released.
 

Blood Sacrifice (The Healers of Meligna, Book #3) Released.

Forsaken Power (The Healers of Meligna, Book #4) Coming this month!
 

Unnamed (The Healers of Meligna, Book #5) Coming February, 2015!

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S
HADOWLIGHT
S
AGA
, B
OOK
O
NE
: B
ONDED

Mande Matthews

Chapter I

H
ALLAD
A
VARSON
TENSED
,
HOLDING
HIS
breath as he strained to hear a voice that murmured nearly beyond detection. He swung his head toward the sound, the depth of the Great Wood expanding before him. The remains of the sinking sun caused blackness to lurk in the dense undergrowth of the forest as the melody drifted out of the darkened woods.

The young man turned to his companions idling on the Green to gauge their reaction to the singing. His little sister, Emma, sat with her linen skirts splayed on the ground around her, glancing up through her thick lashes at her beau, Erik Sigtrigson. Erik stared down at her from where he knelt, his expression fond, fierce and protective all at once. Rolf Sigtrigson, Erik’s brother, younger by a single summer, paced around the two courters, working a carving knife against a stick. The birch took shape beneath his nimble fingers, taking the form of his favorite god, Bragi. None betrayed any sign of hearing the noise.

“Did you hear that?” Hallad asked.

“Hear what?” Emma replied.

Discernible notes strung into a vaguely familiar lullaby.

The sky is dark and the hills are white,

As the storm-king speeds from the nordr tonight . . .

“Blood brother,” said Erik. “The forest lays still.”

Hallad stretched his neck toward the woods again, listening.

And this is the song the storm-king sings,

As over the world his cloak he flings . . .

“Nei,” said Hallad, as a puff of breath escaped his lungs. Though spring, the air still chilled his breath, creating a circle of mist that floated toward the dim woods. “I hear a voice.”

“I don’t hear anything,” said Emma, keeping her gaze on Erik. She studied the line of her suitor’s jaw; her full lips turned upward in a perpetual smile.

“Your fancies have gotten away with you,” added Erik.

Hallad sucked in air, as if stifling himself would suffocate the intruding voice.

“Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;”

He rustles his wings and gruffly sings:

“Sleep, little one, sleep.”

Hallad squared his shoulders, a barricade to the drone behind him, and turned back toward the group on the Green, addressing his little sister.

“Let us be off before our mother discovers you and Erik have gone missing together.”

“Thyre will not find us, blood brother. Come. Sit with us for once,” Erik replied in Emma’s stead.

“Nei. We need to leave,” Hallad insisted, more in response to the confusing desires the lullaby stirred inside than for concern over his mother’s disapproval.
 

A purplish haze filled the sky as the sun winked out over the Skagg Mountains, darkness descending over his companions. The air held no comfort as a chill swept the Green, the nordr wind warning of a harsh season ahead. With a couple of long strides, Hallad reached the group and picked up his mantle, bow and quiver. He swung his mantle around him to guard against the biting wind, and held his hand out to his sister.

Emma ignored his outstretched hand. Her eyes rounded, pupils contracting, misty gray irises engulfing the centers of black. Cascades of sunlight colored hair, held in place by a maiden’s circlet, framed her delicate features. A barn cat nestled within her skirts and lay purring beside her, making no attempt to move.
 

“You promised,” Emma whispered.
 

Hallad allowed his arm to drop back to his side.

“You need not chaperone us, Hallad Avarson.” Erik’s use of his full name, instead of the familiar term blood brother, burned Hallad’s ears. He might as well have called him the godhi’s son. The title reminded Hallad he always stood apart from the others—a thought that agitated a dark place inside him. A place that felt empty and alone.

“I take full responsibility for our courtship.” Erik hovered over Emma, his black hair the color of crow feathers, the stark contrast of the two courters like a storm eclipsing daylight.

“Mother may not agree to our courtship, but surely you can plead our case with father. He is fair. And he will listen to you, brother,” Emma begged.
 

Though their mother disapproved of the union, Hallad had agreed to become the couple’s secret chaperone to thwart any tarnish to his family’s reputation. He knew it was wrong. Yet he could not deny his sister. Or his blood sworn.

But it was not their mother he feared. She was an excuse. What raised his hairs was the strange voice inside his head. It called to him from the depths of the Great Wood, filling the void of loneliness he’d harbored for as long as he could remember. The raw desire to seek its source awakened every muscle in his body. Hallad quivered inside his skin.

His father’s words rushed over him,
Rule with your head, even though your heart calls.
Hallad repeatedly flexed his free hand as he tried to contain the irrational urge and shook his head at his own stupidity, but the song continued to wash through him.

On yonder mountainside a vine,

Clings at the foot of a mother pine;

The tree bends over the trembling thing,

And only the vine can hear her sing . . .

“You should worry.” Rolf’s voice split through the tune in Hallad’s head.
 

Though Rolf was Erik’s brother, they bore little resemblance to one another. Rolf—tall and lanky, with ember colored hair—swirled his embroidered mantle depicting Bragi about him. He resembled a prince from a scald’s tale, with his crimson cape and expertly turned cowhide boots, yet he was merely the son of a cobbler.
 

“But not of Thyre. She’s too busy admiring her latest trinkets, purchased from the tinker with her husband’s fine bull, to notice her daughter has been stolen away by the lowly son of Sigtrig.”

Erik’s eyes sparked at the insult to Thyre, while Emma feigned disagreement.
 

Rolf continued, “It is the swan maiden. The valkryrie. The messenger of the Goddess within the Great Wood you should fear.”

Hallad’s attention snapped to Rolf again. Did he hear the voice too?

Rolf swept back his mantle in a gesture grand enough for a king’s hall, announcing the arrival of a story. Hallad realized the younger brother only sought an opening to tell his tale. Erik settled from his knees to a sitting position, ready for the performance. Emma cuddled the cat within her pale blue skirts, straightening the maiden’s circlet that had fallen askance on her head, as eager as Erik for the story to begin. All had ignored Hallad’s command to leave.

The violet sky darkened. Hallad stood torn between his duty to watch over his little sister and his desire to discover the mystery calling to him from within the Great Wood. His momentary lapse gave Rolf his in.

The wishful scald inhaled, filling his lungs, and spread his arms out as if greeting a crowd.
 

“There was a time long ago, a time you and I both know.”

Erik burst into laughter.

Emma’s gray eyes twinkled. She covered her smiling lips with her fingers.

“What?” asked Rolf, raising his brows as if he didn’t know what the commotion was about.

“Nei rhyming,” chided Erik.

“What’s wrong with rhyming?” demanded Rolf, indignantly swirling his mantle around him.

“Have you ever heard of a rhyming scald?” asked Erik.

Rolf smiled a sincere, white-toothed grin.
 

“I will be the first! The rhyming scald extraordinaire!” He bowed deeply at his own introduction.

Emma giggled and Erik howled, slapping his knees and ruffling his sleek hair with uncontrolled tremors. Hallad only stiffened, the mysterious voice caressing his mind, fingering through his memories to pry at the emptiness within him.

“Come brother,” said Erik. He straightened his face with effort. “Tell it right.”

Rolf softened as he stared at his elder brother smiling up at him.

“Ja. I will tell it right,” Rolf conceded and once more swept his red cape back, the woven picture of the god dancing as if commanded.

Many moons ago, the land vast and untamed,

The Gods laid their prophecies down for mortals’ ears.

Neither you, nor I, a gleam in our fathers’ eyes,

While the Norns drew our destinies upon the rune stones . . .

Emma beamed at the storyteller, her eyes wide, as Erik snuggled closer to her. Instead of Rolf’s fine tenor, only the voice from the forest sounded in Hallad’s head. The song had taken on a peculiar timbre as it grew louder. It was full, rich, and female, but too beautiful, too unearthly. Hallad stopped himself in mid-thought.
 

I act a fool
.
I hear nothing
.

Regardless, Hallad took a heavy-footed step backward, toward the voice. His breath escaped in a sigh, as if moving toward the melody’s source relieved the pressure building within him. He paused, contemplating his friends on the Green. They looked content. At ease. Jovial. Hallad never felt such liberties. He longed to lounge on the lawn with them and forget, for once, that he was the godhi’s son. But with that title, the constant itch to be on guard, to be responsible, and to be apart was ever present.