Sunset of Lantonne (57 page)

In her mind, magic flowed like water around her, within reach at all times but lacking shape. Unlike her own spells that required her to mold the magic into tangible forms for the real world, the enchantment was supposed to be directed into the sigils…which she did not have. Instead, she formed those sigils in her mind’s eye and pushed the magic through them like she would a more mundane spell.

The worst part she knew was still coming. At the completion of the enchantment, the material components the enchantment required would be consumed to snap the spell into a final shape while it tore her body apart and moved it to its new location. Without those items, she would have to guide the magic at the same time she was being ripped into pieces.

Ilarra began the process, surprising herself at the ease with which she directed the flow of energy into the imagined sigils, though she knew the Turessians were helping in their own way. The sigils flared and vanished from her mind one at a time, the magic ramping up in intensity with each. As the last symbol lit, the magic rebounded abruptly and grabbed at her body while her mind continued to push the magic onward. She felt her skin being torn at, burned, and frozen by the tendrils of magic that were only just barely under her control.

The next step was the most difficult and arguably the most crucial. She had to ignore the pain flooding her body and keep her mind guiding the magic, all the while fueling the remaining portion of the enchantment with her own strength.

Suddenly, the magic began to kick wildly in all directions, the enchantment falling apart rapidly without the needed focal items and Ilarra’s lack of experience with such magic. She could feel her body being pulled and shoved and knew she had entirely lost control. Nothing she could do was bringing it back into any semblance of order.

Unlike previous brief thoughts on topics she should have known nothing of, Ilarra’s mind abruptly filled with clear and direct conversations, as if she were hearing all the chatter in a crowded room. Many were talking about other matters, but nearly a dozen immediately began speaking about the magic she was trying to use.

“Calm yourself and concentrate here,” one advised her, and she realized that she had begun doing as it said without intending to.

Another came forward in her mind. “Push the magic back from there. It will fall into place. Two hundred years and I’ve never had that fail when an enchantment goes awry.”

She reacted as instructed, pulling the stream of magic back into the pattern she had intended from the start. The entire enchantment resumed smoothly, the pain in her physical body vanishing quickly. At that point in the enchantment, she knew the casting would work in some fashion. She only needed to maintain her single-minded focus on the destination she intended at the foot of the mountain where Nenophar would hopefully be waiting.

The air ripped apart in front of Ilarra and black mists rolled out of it, enveloping her. She completed the last sigil in her mind and the darkness abruptly lit with an eerie glow, as though the smoke-like mists were on fire. The mists washed over her and the pressure of the mountain’s stones on her knees fell away.

In a moment of exaltation, Ilarra realized this magic could be used for any number of worthwhile purposes. She could go back to Lantonne.

She could go home.

The world snapped back abruptly, and Ilarra slammed hard into the ground. She lay there panting, unable to make herself open her eyes. Exhaustion racked her body and made both her mind and muscles burn with even the slightest effort. Above her, she could feel the warmth of the glowing mists fade away.

“Well done, my child,” came a new voice at the edge of Ilarra’s consciousness. The man was not one she had heard before, but his accent was odd to her ears. “I will send your brethren to find you and bring you back before the wizard can get to you. Be patient.”

Slowly, Ilarra became aware that she lay on uneven ground, with several stones jabbing into her ribs and her left shin. As that became clearer to Ilarra, so did the warmth of sunlight on her back. Wherever she was, the air was far warmer than it was back in the mountains. Distant sounds of birds and the creak of tree branches made her open her eyes, though the dead grass and mud around her filled her vision with brown.

With trembling arms, Ilarra pushed herself up onto her knees, sitting back on her feet to see where she had wound up. She expected to see mountains immediately to the west and rocky foothills all around her. Instead, she found herself lying in the woods, surrounded by nothing but trees and mud. The warmth was far more than she had expected, even after a month working with Nenophar. If she had not known it to be spring, she would have assumed it was a month or two later.

“Nenophar?” She searched the trees for any sign of the man. The woods remained fairly quiet, aside from a few birdcalls, and nothing moved.

A crackle of a branch startled Ilarra and she spun, finding that she faced Asha, who had managed to sneak within twenty feet of her. The wildling crouched low to the ground, her face just above the tops of the bushes and pale eyes narrowed as she stared at Ilarra.

Asha had always been a proud creature, her ferocity hidden by attention to her appearance. Simple things had kept her from looking the part of a warrior, such as her fur’s grooming, simple clothing, and polished steel jewelry that accented her fur’s patterns while being designed to be strong enough to survive combat. Now, she was anything but proud, walking on all fours with fur that had been matted by long periods of time in the wilds and clothing that had been torn to rags. She bared her teeth and stared at Ilarra with a hungry anger that was so incredibly unlike the Asha Ilarra knew and so much more like the werewolves she had seen.

“Asha, it’s me,” Ilarra said in what she hoped was a soothing manner, standing slowly. “Where’s my father?”

Asha growled, hesitated, and then scratched at her face with one hand, leaving deep gouges from her filthy and broken claws. From the look of the woman’s face, she had done this many times recently. Whimpering, Asha collapsed and curled into a ball, covering her face with both hands. “He’s gone. Gone like the rest. All gone.”

“Asha, what is going on?” asked Ilarra in utter amazement. She had never heard Asha’s voice before and this was hardly how she had imagined their first conversation. “Are you alright, Asha?”

The wildling’s hands dropped and she looked up at Ilarra, blinking in what appeared to be surprise. Growling again, she rolled back onto her hands and feet, advancing with the same hungry expression she had possessed at first.

Ilarra had to think quickly, searching the trees for some idea of where she was. It took a few seconds, during which Asha padded slowly closer, but Ilarra realized she was no more than a hundred feet outside of Hyeth, near the main road.

Knowing where she was and thus where to go, Ilarra began running through the damp leaves toward the village itself, praying someone there might be able to help her. Behind her, she could hear the panting of Asha as she started chasing.

It took Ilarra no more than thirty seconds to reach the wood line that hid the city, but when she did, everything looked as she would have expected. As she rounded the last patch of trees between herself and the nearest building, she felt the brush of claws across her back as Asha nearly caught her. Then suddenly, the sensation of someone breathing down her neck was gone.

Looking back as she approached the library, Ilarra saw that Asha had stopped at the edge of the woods, snarling as she paced back and forth. She did not set foot into the clearing but waited in the shadowed trees, watching Ilarra with utter hatred that broke Ilarra’s heart. This was her surrogate mother, her friend, now clearly wanting to kill her.

“Ilarra!” called out her father’s voice, drawing her attention away from Asha to the library, where her father stood on the top step. “Get inside! I’ll explain what’s going on once you’re safe.”

Ilarra looked back toward the woods, but the trees gave no hint of where Asha had gone. She had vanished back into the dense woods.

“Where have you been?” her father asked, coming down the last few steps when Ilarra did not move. “The king sent word more than a month ago through soldiers that he feared we were in danger based on something you told him, but they would not say why you had not come with them. The last message we got said you had left Lantonne for some reason.”

Turning back to her father, Ilarra could only stare in confusion for a time, seeing him exactly as she had left him while his bonded raged in the woods. She had never seen him without Asha nearby in her whole life. Without her at his side, he seemed somehow incomplete. Idly, she wondered if others saw her the same way without Raeln.

Looking around, Ilarra realized her father was the only one who had come out into the central open space of the village. Not a single warrior or hunter, villager, merchant, or anyone else had shown themselves.

“I am sorry to be rude, father,” she said, trying to smile despite the chill that came from thinking about Asha. “That was not what I expected coming home.”

“Do not worry about it,” her father insisted, grabbing her arm gently but firmly. “Come inside and we can discuss it. One thing at a time.”

Planting her feet, Ilarra motioned toward the woods, asking on a whim, “What about Asha? I can’t leave her out there like this.”

Her father’s face crinkled angrily for a brief moment, but then he smiled and shook his head. “No, I’m afraid she is quite upset with me over some things I said to the king’s men. I would rather give her time to calm down before asking her back in.”

“You said they were here a month ago.”

“I did,” he agreed. “They have stayed here on orders from the king. I believe they intend to help us turn away an attack, should one come. I am fairly certain they sent word back to the king regarding our safety.”

Ilarra searched her father’s face for what was making her uneasy, but could not find any deception or malice. He seemed entirely normal, ignoring Asha’s behavior. Ilarra could not push the image of the woman aside, and as the only other person she had seen, her father was highly suspect.

“I got very sick when I left town,” Ilarra noted, pulling her arm away. “Why aren’t you?”

Her father laughed. “I was, trust me. The king’s men were sent a cure about a week or so back, along with an extra dose for you if you turned up. I believe I have the letters they brought up in my study, as well as the bottle for you.”

Reluctantly following her father’s beckoning as he went up the steps, she stopped at the doorway and stared at the unrepaired damage from the undead attack more than a month earlier. Tables lay broken and pushed aside, and burns still marred the floor where the Turessian had fallen apart. Turning around, she even saw the faded stains on the steps where the undead had dragged Rolus down and gutted him.

“We have had precious little time to work on cleaning,” her father admitted, nodding at the wreckage. “The king’s men say they will assist us once the village is ready. Until then, preparations are our main task.”

Ilarra followed her father’s lead into the library, past the broken tables and chairs, but stopped when they reached the steps to the next floor. She felt distinctly uncertain about going up there, much as she had felt as a child when she knew her father was about to scold her. This time, that fear was far more influential. Hesitating, she glanced over at the open door to the cellar.

“We have not sent anyone down there since you left,” her father quickly noted, waiting several steps up. “Come. We have much to talk about.”

Numbly, Ilarra walked to the cellar door and down the steps, while she heard her father sigh behind her. She made her way down, not really knowing what to expect, but needing to see what she had been too afraid to look at months before.

At the bottom of the stairs, the cellar was nearly pitch black, lit only by the daylight that managed to come down the staircase. In that light, she could faintly make out Ishande’s body, lying on its side against the wall.

The stench of decay was overpowering. She could not fathom how anyone could have allowed Ishande to remain there for months without even giving her a proper burial. Her father had always been the one to give funeral rights. There was no excuse.

Clenching her jaw and trying not to cry, Ilarra went back up the stairs, well aware that something was very wrong in the village. Her father’s absent smile when she came back up into the library did not help matters, making her wonder if he was actually proud of leaving a proud warrior to rot in the basement.