She blinked and tore her eyes from the fire.
“I will find her,” she said fiercely, looking at both of them. “Whether you come with me or not.”
Uthalion glanced at Brindani once, ignoring the hopeful look in the half-elfs eyes and knelt down to look deeply into Ghaelya’s. Having been deceived by field commanders and incompetent officers in the past, he was confident in his ability to detect a lie.
“I’m sorry about your sister, truly,” he began. “But, what does any of this have to do with Tohrepur?”
She broke his stare at length, her hps drawn into a tight line as if ashamed of something.
“I” She broke off, clenching her teeth and looking off into the forest before turning back to face him. “I saw it… in a dream.”
“A dream,” Uthalion repeated the word in disbelief, getting only a reluctant nod from the genasi before he stood and brushed off his hands on his trousers.
“Well, I’ve heard enough,” he said, glaring at Brindani and turning away, eager to be alone and to put the business behind him.
“It’s true,” Brindani called after him, a desperate tone in his voice. “We need your help… You owe me this!”
Uthalion stopped and turned, his fists clenched as he rounded on the half-elf. Brindani raised his hands as if he were about to explain himself, but Uthalion gave him no chance.
“Owe you? Is that what you think?” he yelled and grabbed the half-elfs tunic, shoving him backward.
“I only meant” Brindani began, but stopped short as Uthalion slammed him against a tree.
“Oh, I know what you meant! You’d like to blame me for the old blood on your hands, is that it?” He shook the half-elf hard, trembling with rage. Brindani’s heart pounded beneath Uthalion’s fist. “We both took the job, volunteered… Don’t expect anything from me just because you followed orders you didn’t like!”
“Your orders!” Brindani yelled back.
Uthalion pulled him from the tree and shoved him to the ground. He resisted the urge to draw his blade, but just barely. He turned away and found Ghaelya, her hand on her sword and a threatening glint in her eye.
“Leave him be,” she said.
“Take him and be on your way,” he said and pointed south into the woods. “You’re not welcome here.”
“Fine,” she said, shrugging. She pushed past him roughly and added, “Useless bastard.”
Her insult struck him like a hammer. He stared after her, stunned, as the pair left the grove and struck into the southern Spur, The same words echoed from his past, chasing him through the old front door of a cottage he’d once shared with Maryna. It was her voice screaming in rage as he’d left her for the second timethe last time he’d heard her voice… and his young daughter’s cries through the open window.
“You can’t let them go,” Vaasurri said, approaching stealthily from the dark, his emerald eyes boring into Uthalion’s. “You know better.”
Not startled by the killoren’s appearance, Uthalion nodded in a daze, his former rage drained away by the haze of sudden memory. Shaking free of the past, he stared after Ghaelya and Brindani, realizing what he’d truly done. He sprinted into the forest after them. The land sloped downward in the deep Spur, just beyond the foothills of the Akanapeaks. Though the moon was nearly down, he caught their path quickly and focused on the genasi’s louder footfalls to guide him.
She spun around angrily in the dark, seeing the glinting glow of the grove’s campfire just beyond their line of sight, but flashing dimly on the leaves. Brindani didn’t turn at all, but merely stopped and waited.
“Did you come to hurry us on?” she asked angrily, and he felt shamed in her gaze.
“No, I just” he began, but waa cut short by the sound of a thunderous roar. The ground shook as they all looked southward. Leaves shivered overhead as the roar grew ever louder, a plaintive, hungry sound echoing from deep in the southern forest. A sound like splitting trees reached them, wood cracking like lightning and crashing like the rolling front of a distant storm. Uthalion caught his breath, relieved that it was far away, but still alarmed and eager to get back to the grove. Ghaelya turned to him wide-eyed as the roar slowly faded.
“Morning,” he said quickly. He gestured back the way they’d come. “You should wait until morning.”
Nodding in shock, they turned back up the slope and into the waiting glow of the grove.
Uthalion stood a moment longer, staring into the dark maw of the Spur and reflecting on what he’d nearly allowed to happen. His heart pounded, and he breathed deeply, listening for the roar again, but it never came.
“Useless bastard,” he repeated to himself, suddenly hating the man he’d let himself becomeselfish, cowardly… alone.
He walked back to the grove, his thoughts heavy and far away from the Spur. Vaasurri, not particularly shy and rarely at a loss for words, had introduced himself to their guests and was already warming stew over the campfire. Their words were lost on Uthalion as he knelt and lifted the makeshift door to his hidden cavern beneath the grove. He had no hunger for stew, nor longing for conversation, polite ormore likelyotherwise.
He lit a candle, its light flickering on the rough ceiling of the small chamber, a sanctuary of rock and dirt within the greater fold of the surrounding forest. It held him close, being barely long enough for him to stretch his arms over his head and touch the opposite wall with his boots, and just tall enough for him to kneel in prayerback when he had a mind to do so. He leaned back against the wall, his arms resting on his knees, and stared at the silver ring on his finger. He was tired despite its enchantment.
Almost without thinking, he reached down to his side, to his unused bedroll and an old cloak, and produced a tiny pouch. As he slipped the knot on the drawstring, a gold ring fell into his palm. He held it up, contrasting it to the silver one he’d been wearing for over five years. Misshapen, more an oval than a circle, the gold ring had saved him from losing a finger by an ore’s axe while he was doing mercenary work. That was when he had laid down his blade, returned home, and promised Maryna he’d never leave again. A year later the Keepers had come, and despite his oath, his family had needed the coin.
Time slipped away from him as he reminisced. The candle had burned a quarter of its length before Vaasurri entered the cave and drew him away from his thoughts of years past. Uthalion met the killoren’s deep green eyes for a moment before closing his own, already expecting what was to come.
“I’m going with them,” Vaasurri said simply, and Uthalion nodded, sighing.
“I thought as much,” he answered. “Do you believe them? About her dreams?”
Vaasurri lowered his head, considering the question before shrugging slightly. “It doesn’t really matter what I believe,” he replied. “Were I to let them go, aimless across the Akana… Well, it wouldn’t be right, so long as I’m able to help.”
Uthalion sat forward, staring at the dirt floor, clutching the silver ring against one palm and the gold against the other. He clenched his teeth and looked up at the fey, shaking his head and forcing the words from his mouth.
“I would have let them die,” he said. “If you hadn’t shown up…”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Vaasurri said, smiling slightly. “You might have let them get a bit farther had I not shown up, but you would have stopped them.”
“Should I try to stop them now? Going all that way for just a pile of ruins… If they even make it that far.” Uthalion stared into the dancing shadows at the end of the cave.
“I’ve spoken to the woman, and I don’t think you could stop her.”
Uthalion didn’t answer. Vaasurri might have a point, but that didn’t mean he had to listen to it. He wasn’t responsible for the genasi woman. Or Brindani. He wasn’t responsible for anyone any longer.
“The better effort,” Vaasurri continued, “Might be in getting yourself out of this hole in the ground, out of this forest.”
Uthalion leaned back, shaking his head at the idea. The idea of leaving was not an unfamiliar onehe thought of it every day, always putting it off until the next and the next after that. He’d considered it a thousand times, but wasn’t sure how to go about reclaiming a life that felt like a candle burned to nothing at both ends.