Gaven stood for a moment upon the burning line of his dragonmark, red fire in the rosy crystal floor. The maze of twisting lines threatened to overwhelm him. How had he chosen a path with such clarity before, with Havrakhad beside him? Consequences and destinations eluded him, paths trailed off into darkness before he could discern their significance. Shadow closed in on him again, and he thought he heard Rienne's voice.
"No sleep," Gaven said aloud, forcing his eyes open and then away from the dragonshard. He turned another page.
A clash of dragons signals the sundering of the Soul Reaver's gates. The hordes of the Soul Reaver spill from the earth, and a ray of Khyber's sun erupts to form a bridge to the sky.
There was a note on this page, written in the same angular Dwarven hand: "The prisoner's sleep was very troubled."
Of course it was, Gaven thought. He remembered his dreams of the Soul Reaver and its hordes, though now the dreams were jumbled with the memory of the actual event. It didn't matter-the dreams had been true to reality in every detail. He had lived through a nightmare.
He looked at the date, 21 Eyre 973 YK. Twenty-six years later, he'd been in New Cyre with Senya-he remembered the date from the forged identification papers she'd secured for him there.
"Destiny is… it's like the highest hopes the universe has for you." Gaven couldn't see Senya's face, but he heard her voice as though she were in the same room. "Like-like my mother wanted the best for me. And you can either fulfill your destiny, or you-"
What had Senya's mother dreamed for her daughter? Gaven hadn't really known his own mother. She died shortly after Thordren was born, leaving just a vague impression of a comforting presence in his toddler mind, an encompassing love he associated later in his life with Rienne's embrace. What had been her highest hopes for her son? Gaven thought of his father, whose hopes for Gaven had always felt like very high expectations-the hope, disappointed at every turn, that Gaven would grow into a replica of himself. Rienne, though, had always accepted who he was, and somehow at the same time inspired him to become someone better.
He threw himself out of bed, scattering papers to one side, the dragonshard clattering to the floor on the other. A weight gripped his chest, squeezing the breath from his lungs, and he couldn't sit still. He strode to the door, thought about opening it, then turned and paced to the window at the other end of the room.
"Where are you, Ree?" His eyes scanned the streets and buildings outside as if he expected Rienne to show herself to his view, but for all he knew she was still half the world away, rotting in some dragonborn prison. "I need you so much."
He pressed his forehead against the cool glass and closed his eyes, drawing a slow breath to calm his racing heart. Rienne's face appeared in the darkness, streaked with tears.
"You left me," she sobbed.
"I'm coming to find you, love," he mumbled, his lips thick with sleep.
He stood on a battlefield. Bodies blanketed the ground, slick with gore. Howls of fury and sobs of pain assaulted his ears. Exhaustion pulled at his limbs and dragged his shoulders toward the blood-soaked ground. Thunder crashed in the air, then all human sounds ceased, leaving only a string of syllables. They held the absence of meaning, and their sound was the unmaking of all things.
All around him, soldiers in Aundairian blue and savages clad in hide and fur fell as one to the ground, clutching their ears, their mouths forming silent howls of agony. He saw Rienne still standing, her face wrenched in pain, both hands on the hilt of her sword. Before her was a demon in the shape of a man, bound in bloodstained plate armor. He lifted a curved sword as the sounds of destruction kept spilling from his mouth.
"No!" Gaven screamed, and lightning arced from the red dragonshard to his body and exploded toward the Blasphemer.
Glass shattered and fell in a hail around him on the hardwood floor.
CHAPTER 12
Rienne!" Jordhan's voice was a distant siren, drawing her out of sleep. She awoke in his cabin, her cheeks wet with tears, wisps of dream clouding her thoughts, Gaven's name on her lips. Jordhan was calling down from the deck, and as the haze of sleep lifted she could hear the urgency in his voice.
She sprang out of the bunk, snatched up Maelstrom in its sheath, and bounded through the hatch to the deck. Sunlight cast long shadows across the polished wood beneath her feet, but she couldn't tell whether the sun was about to dip below the horizon or just emerging above it. Jordhan stood at the helm, alert, watching something off the starboard bow.
"What is it?" she asked, hurrying to the bulwarks. She saw before he could answer-three pairs of wings, fierce eagle beaks and talons in front, powerful body and horse-like hooves in back. Hippogriffs-each one carrying a rider. The sun gleamed on the riders' metal armor and shone on the tips of the long lances they carried. The majestic beasts soared on wide-spread wings, on a course that would intercept the airship's in just a few moments.
"Have they hailed you?" Rienne called back to Jordhan.
"Not yet."
"Where are we?"
Jordhan scoffed. "The middle of nowhere. We're almost back to the edge of the forest, ahead of the barbarians again."
"These riders aren't from the horde, though."
"No. There seem to be Eldeen forces coming together somewhere near here-I've seen quite a few contingents moving beneath us."
"So the hippogriffs are part of the Eldeen defenses."
"I'd assume so."
Rienne slid Maelstrom into the sash at her waist and tried to relax as the hippogriffs closed the distance. She should have nothing to fear from the Reachers-she was here, after all, to help them defend their land from the barbarians. Ostensibly, though, that was the same reason that Aundair had sent troops into the Reaches. House Lyrandar had close ties to Aundair, so she wasn't sure of the reaction she should expect from these riders.
The hippogriffs approached in a tight wedge, the wingtips of the two in the rear almost touching each other near the front one's tail. Rienne backed toward the helm to make room on the deck for one of the beasts to land, and a moment later the two rear hippogriffs split off to either side as the front one fluttered into a graceful landing, its rear hooves clattering against the deck. The rider was a human in thick hide armor, covered with a sage green tabard bearing the oak-tree emblem of the Eldeen Reaches. His skin was a shade darker than Rienne's, almost black. He set his lance into a sling attached to the saddle and dismounted.
"Captain Lyrandar," the man said with a small bow toward Jordhan, "and lady, I apologize for this intrusion. I am Sky Warden Kyaphar."
Rienne glanced over her shoulder at Jordhan, who smiled at the Sky Warden. "I am Jordhan d'Lyrandar-you'll forgive me not leaving the helm to greet you properly. This is Rienne ir'Alastra, of Stormhome."
"What can we do for you, Sky Warden?" Rienne said.
"Can I inquire as to your business in this part of the Reaches? Are you carrying cargo?"
Rienne drew a deep breath. "We are here to offer our support to your leadership, to help defend the Reaches from its attackers."
Kyaphar's face twisted in anger. "Which attackers do you mean? The Carrion Tribes or the armies of Aundair?"
"I believe the Carrion Tribes to be the greater threat," Rienne said, "with dragons as their vanguard."
"And vultures at their rear. But Aundair is no less an invading army. The defense of the Reaches is a Reacher concern, not Aundair's, and not yours. What is your stake in our fate?"
Kyaphar's words echoed the words of her dream, and she shuddered. Vultures wheel where dragons flew, picking the bones of the numberless dead. "I had a dream," she said, to herself as much as to him.
"And your dream led you to the defense of the Eldeen Reaches?"