She froze, trying to drag another breath in. “To Shan?”
“You healed Shan, I know. And in doing so gave of yourself to him. You are part of him now. It explains an awful lot, Jeren.” He looked away and it seemed as if he had finished. But after a moment’s pause, he continued, the words dragged out with reluctance, “And yet I cannot wish that you had not. I would not lose another member of my family. Now, close your eyes, seal that mouth of yours and let me teach you. That is why we are here. Not to discuss Shan.”
She did as instructed, chafing under his instructions.
“Release your magic, and think of your owl.”
The owl. Jeren frowned, wondering where the owl had gone. She hadn’t seen her since their arrival in Sheninglas.
“I didn’t say think about her,” said Indarin. “I said think of her. Seek her out with your mind. She’s your totem, is she not? Find her, become her.”
As usual the magic flowed through her, a blissful touch which filled the world around her with light, with the awareness of light. She could sense Indarin and the light that flowed like a river within him. He was angry, sullen, and still somewhat dismissive of her abilities.
Jeren ground her teeth and pressed on. Beyond him she sensed the encampment, and the Shistra-Phail, columns of fires, moving, dancing, fighting, laughing. Yes, they laughed, they loved, they lived, these cold and austere beings. She marvelled at the range of emotions that coloured their inner light.
High overhead Jeren heard a cry and her attention shot upward, to the owl circling overhead, calling out to her. A smile lifted her lips and before she knew what was happening, her mind leaped into the air, breaking free of the bonds of earth effortlessly.
The wind took her, feathers humming as they held her aloft, her eyes keen and determined, her body rolling and looping with the airwaves for the sheer joy of it. She spiralled above the camp. Jeren and the owl cried out, swooping over Indarin, circling her own still and pale form. She barely recognised herself anymore. Her body looked lean and hard, her face thinner than she had ever seen in her looking glass at home. The old Jeren had been whittled away to reveal something of a warrior.
She circled again, swooping down on Indarin in the vain hope that she might startle him before climbing as high as possible. He never moved, but she thought she saw a smile curve his lips out of the corner of her eyes.
Indarin, smile? Impossible.
She climbed higher and higher, casting out across the undulating valleys, bulleting through the air until she reached the foothills of the mountains.
Drifting on the air, she found the figures of Shan and Ylandra, already miles from home. She longed to linger, to follow him and make sure he saw her, that he knew she was with him. As if in answer to her thoughts, he looked up, scanning the sky, following her path with his beautiful eyes. She cried out, the hoot sounding plaintive and lost as it echoed through the mountains. Shan…her Shan, her mate, her love.
Ylandra stopped at his side and said something, a sharp tone which made him stiffen and start forward again.
Jeren would have followed again, but something tugged at her chest. Something deep inside her, like a wire. She banked south and sped back over the foothills, over the camp. A light twinkling in the distance drew her on, something approaching across the mountain’s pass, coming from the Holtlands, something bright and terrible.
“Come back,” Indarin whispered, his voice no more than a ripple on the breeze which held her aloft.
Jeren jolted back into her own body and released her breath in a gasp. “I was…I was flying…”
An unexpected laugh rippled through his voice. “Yes, it can feel like that. Especially if your owl was trying to be of help. There’s more to you than Shistra-Phail, Jeren. Perhaps you should be with the Seers after all. At the very least there is something of a Shaman about you. But we were not meant to be exploring afar, but within, remember?”
“Yes, but—Indarin, there are people coming. Coming across the mountains.”
“People?”
She swallowed hard on a suddenly aching throat, dreading saying it, knowing that she had to tell him, had to warn him. “Holters.”
Chapter Five
The owl moved like a spirit, a blur of light in the morning’s sky. Shan came to a halt and followed her with his gaze. So beautiful, so elegant in every movement, so like Jeren. His heart tugged deep in his chest, longing to return to her. His guiding light.
“Are you going to stand there all day staring?” Ylandra snapped.
Her irritation had been growing all day like a barb in his side, and yet by not responding he deliberately made it worse. It was both petty and beneath him, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner he could get back to the sect, and Jeren.
They found the settlement deserted. Shan waited by the central fire-pit while Ylandra checked hut after hut. Nothing. He knew it already. There was a stillness to the air, as if the world was in mourning for the Feyna who had lived here. All gone, and the Shistra-Phail who should have guarded them vanished too. The whole place had been stripped of life.
“No sign of struggle though,” Ylandra said. “Just gone.”
Shan nodded but didn’t answer. There was nothing to say.
They started northeast again and he spotted the trail when they cleared the next rise. The grass had been trampled down, a long line which snaked towards the northern mountains. With his heart thundering, he followed it, aware of Ylandra in tow, but ignoring her.
“There,” she said sharply, and he followed her pointing hand eastwards. A rocky gully dropped away from them. Carrion birds circled overhead and Shan muttered under his breath. It was inevitable. Still, he wished with all his heart that it could be otherwise.
The dead had been pitched down there, mostly Shistra-Phail, but some of their more peaceable brothers and sisters lay alongside them, for despite all protestations, who would not fight when a child was threatened? Feyna children were rare and precious, a gift from the gods to be protected and treasured. But there were no children in the gully. Some of the broken figures were ancient, but none were young. All were torn and tortured, ripped apart or beaten to a pulp. Their blank eyes stared skywards at the black birds and the clouds.
Ylandra staggered back, turned and dropped to her knees to vomit.
Shan just waited, studying the area, trying to draw every clue out of the landscape. Finally, the Sect Mother got to her feet once more, wiping her pale face and trying desperately to look like it had never happened.
He waited until she’d gathered her dignity again.
“They took the survivors that way.” He nodded northeast, to the bleak hills shrouded in black clouds. “No more than fifty.”
“And the Fell?”
“Twice that. We should fetch reinforcements.”
She stared into the distance, her jaw firming, her brow furrowing. “We could lose them,” she said at last. “There isn’t time.”
“Ylandra, if a hundred walk with their captives now, there will be more waiting at the end of the march.”
“There isn’t time.” Her voice was suddenly very cold. “My decision is made, Shan.”
“So two of us will attack a full swarm of Fell and rescue their captives.” He kept his tone as even and unruffled as possible. This was madness. More than madness. Did she think to prove something by this mission? Or to get them both killed?