“Warchief,” said Gleed, stopping him.
Buureg stopped and looked over his shoulder at Gleed.
“You can do better than her, you know,” said Gleed. “You love the Razor Heart, have sworn your life and blood to it. Maaqua uses your clan for her own ends. If you ever come to believe that and need help …”
Buureg watched the little hobgoblin a long time, then gave a sharp nod, and walked through the falls, leaving Hweilan and Gleed alone.
“Strange friends you’re making,” said Gleed.
“You really think she’ll help?” said Hweilan.
“As long as it suits her purposes, yes. But as I warned you: don’t trust her.”
“I don’t.”
“Hweilan-”
“I know my place. What Maaqua said … she was just trying to goad me. You need not fear. Destroying that monster sitting in my home … that’s all that matters to me.”
“And then? It’s no shame to want more in life.”
“Is it a shame to want less?”
Gleed snorted. “Idiot. Love and family are not less. They are everything. Destroying Jagun Ghen is the reason your heart beats blood in your veins, girl. But never forget why. The true warrior fights not because she hates what is in front of her but because she loves what she’s left behind.”
Buureg had been true to his word. When the group returned to the Razor Heart fortress, he led Hweilan and Uncle to the cave where they had shared a meal the night before. She found Darric, Jaden, and Valsun around a fire. They had been fed and given fur blankets. All three were sound asleep, so Hweilan let them be.
“And Mandan?” she asked when she and Buureg were back in the sunlight.
The warchief looked away, staring into the wind. “I told you, Hand. His life is not mine to give or take. Ruuket has sworn to come to him at sundown. It is not my place to interfere.”
“Damn it, what exactly is your place, Buureg?”
He smiled, showing sharp yellow teeth. “Suffering the wrath of willful women.”
Hweilan couldn’t help but smile at that. She reached down and scratched the fur between Uncle’s ears. “That’s it?”
“That is all I can do.”
“Then I will be there at sundown, too.”
He looked back at her, anger in his gaze. “You would harm a grieving mate and her children?”
“No,” said Hweilan. “But I won’t allow them to harm Mandan.”
“You may have to choose one over the other. And if you harm Ruuket or her children, my warriors will be there to stop you.”
Hweilan cursed and looked away. She had wasted so much time already settling things at the Razor Heart. She did not want to start up trouble again. “Can I talk to Ruuket?”
“At sundown.”
Hweilan sighed and let it go. One battle at a time.
“By the way, Maaqua has called a war council,” said Buureg. “For midnight.”
“She is going to help then?”
He narrowed his eyes. “She said she would.”
“Then I will be there, too.”
After leaving Buureg-the warchief was a tough old root, but even he needed sleep-Hweilan went back up to the high places, her wolf at her heels. The combination of gunhin in her veins and her return to the Feywild had renewed her vigor. She didn’t feel the least bit tired. A restless energy filled her, fueling her determination.
Time is running out.
But there was one thing she still had to do. And it shamed her that she had left the duty so long.
The way wasn’t difficult to find. Uncle sniffed at the trail now and then, and under the full light of day, she saw the blood smeared on the dirt and rocks.
“Bastard really did drag himself the whole way down the mountain,” she said to herself, and smiled at the image of Rhan crawling and cursing.
They weren’t far now.
The wolf stopped on the trail ahead. He’d gone very still. Only his ears twitched forward and his nostrils flared as he sniffed the air.
Hweilan’s bow was strapped unstrung on her back. She drew both her knives, the red one in her left hand, the silver in her right. She kneeled on the path, held the silver blade before her, and spoke the words of invitation. The runes along the blade sparkled, light running down their length, and the wind off the mountain changed directions, coming directly into Hweilan’s face. She closed her eyes and inhaled.
There. The pungent, putrid stench of death and worse. Desecration. But she smelled something else as well. Something alive. Anger filled Hweilan, and her jaw clenched so tight she heard her teeth grind. Uncle growled and flattened his ears.
She stood and together they ran up the path.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Argalath woke but could not remember where he was. His entire body felt scraped raw from the inside out. He struggled to take a deep breath, and the reek made him gag.
Preparing for the pain he knew would come, Argalath forced his eyes open. Thick tapestries covered the hall’s windows, but a little light still managed to leak around the edges. And the light pierced his brain like needles. He lay on the dais in the main court. The High Warden’s seat-the old fool had never allowed anyone to call it a throne, though he had been the closest thing to a king for hundreds of miles-lay broken and shattered on the stone. The robes Argalath usually wore were crumpled beneath him. He was naked from the waist up, his skin caked in dried blood. The remains of a goat lay at the foot of the dais. It had been gutted, but most of the flesh was gone. Mice had come out of the walls to swarm over the remains.
Feeling his belly full to bursting, Argalath knew who had eaten the goat, and with this realization, his stomach lurched. Bile and chunks of bloody goat poured out of his mouth, which only made him sicker. He heaved again and again until he brought up nothing but fresh blood from his own torn throat. The muscles of his torso cramped and he fell into his own sick. Laying there, wracked with pain, covered in his own filth, still Argalath smiled. Jagun Ghen must be running out of Nar if he had taken to eating goats.
“Soon,” Argalath said, and that one word made his raw throat burn. It would be over soon. One way or another.
For the moment, the thing inside him was dormant. The one in whom Argalath had hoped to find salvation brought only damnation. Argalath was weakened by the failed rite of the night before and the fight afterward. How long had it been since he had come out of the darkness into his own body? He could not remember.
He was broken. He knew it. All the promises-healing of his affliction, power of his enemies, perhaps even godhood itself … lies. He had been used, and he was almost used up. The fire inside him had burned too long.
“Master?” said a voice nearby.
Argalath raised his head, squinting against the light.
Beneath one of the windows stood Guric, his dead flesh sallow in the wan light. He, too, wore a coat of dried blood, and he held the remains of a goat haunch in one hand.
“Is it time?” said Guric.
“Time-?” said Argalath, then his voice caught in his throat. The thing inside him was stirring. Waking. That implacable will rising like fire through dry kindling. “No. Please … no-”
Argalath screamed, his back arching with such strength that he rapped his head on the stone floor. The mice feasting on the dead goat scattered into the shadows.
“Master?” Guric lurched forward.
“She has returned,” said Jagun Ghen. He could not open his eyes all the way and knew this frail body was about to fail him. Subduing the eladrin and that traitor Vazhad had taken too much of his strength. It was too soon. He needed more time. “I can feel her. She has come back to this world.”
“She will come to us?” said Guric.
“Oh, yes,” said Jagun Ghen. “And we must be ready for her. I must be ready for her.”
Jagun Ghen tried to push himself up, but his strength failed him and he fell again. His hands were shaking like an old man huddled next to his hearthfire. Damn Vazhad. He had done this-and then escaped punishment.