Of Mortal Dreams: Chapter X

Althioc

“This is absurd. It has been eleven days.”

Althioc kept his grip on the mage’s arm light. He could snap it like a dry reed.

Her tone had grown steadily sharper since her arrival on Seraq and, today, it bordered on open impudence, but the facts remained. His father had only promised to consider her proposal. He had neither promised to make the alliance with her uncle nor given any indication as to when he would decide, one way or another. Not for the first time, Althioc had found her banging ineffectually on the King and Queen’s door, demanding an audience. And, once again, he found himself leading her away.

“Let me go,” she ordered coldly. “Now.”

“The King will give you an answer when he is ready,” Althioc said, finally releasing her. She spun to face him. “Agreeing to see you was honor enough.”

“Honor,” she repeated, incredulous. Her silver eyes glinted. “Our elderbloods are being killed, our children are being seized, and we have been forced to scratch out a pitiful existence in the harshest corner of the land. Certainly, I have no lack of honor.”

She said the last part a bit louder, in the general direction of the King. Althioc gave her a warning look. “Take yourself in hand, mage.”

But, in truth, he felt the same impatience. He could neither understand nor justify his father’s slowness of action, and was unsure how much longer even he could bear the indecision in silence. The mage Isydenia Nossidar had already proven to be a knowledgeable resource—she knew which elven and mortal houses were openly displeased with Deladari rule, which sea merchants would support them in a war, and which of both might be prevailed upon, once lines were drawn. She had presented her proposal the day she had arrived, and had been clear that her uncle’s stipulations—a mage kingdom, for one—were largely negotiable. The mages were desperate. Yet his father had not broached the topic again.

Eleven days.

“Not everyone has as much time as you do,” she went on bitterly but with more control. “Not everyone can wait.”

Thanks to Ayari’s questioning, Althioc already knew her situation.

“Your mortal husband will still be young when you meet again,” Althioc offered, walking past her at a normal pace. “Weathered, perhaps. But none the worse for wear.”

In the privacy of his mind, Althioc scoffed. As a mage, Isydenia’s lifespan was not without end, but it certainly exceeded that of a mortal. As such, marrying one made no sense whatsoever. It diluted the blood. The magic. And it invited just this sort of grief.

She chose this life.

“You think me foolish for marrying a mortal. I know,” she observed, keeping in step. “But when your house was ousted and the Usurper first came to power, only mage-to-mage pairings were scrutinized. We never imagined that every marriage would be subject to the throne’s consent.”

Even so, she should have kept to her own. “And when do you expect to receive word on whether the throne has consented to your ‘marriage’?”

The mage shook her head, her lips pulled tight and thin across her face. “There are very few consents.”

As a prince, Althioc had interacted with mages only rarely when his family was in power. He knew just one thing for certain—they could not be trusted. While his people were as immovable as the earth itself, mages had always been as changeable and fleeting as their power, which seemingly came and went at its leisure. Yet he could not deny the acrid scent of pain on her. And longing. A longing as fierce as any he had ever known. That he understood very well.

“Where is he? Your husband.”

She hesitated. “I do not know. And I cannot find him the way I would find another mage—such as my brother, or my cousins. Somewhere in the south. With your people.”

“Not my people.”

She sighed. “With the other adevani. Or elves, rather.”

Elves. He still hadn’t gotten used to the name mainlanders had begun to call his kind, continually mispronouncing the ilfyc title granted to them by the isle folk. The merchants had taken the word back with them, on their many journeys across the strait, and it had taken on a life of its own. Unfortunately.

“When did you last see him?”

Isydenia blinked. “I think it must be fifteen years,” she finally admitted. “Yes. Fifteen years.”

While she remains unchanged. She would look no older than thirty long after her mortal husband was gone, and she had already been cheated of the little time they had. Althioc heard her breathing quicken, sensed a whisper of panic overcome her. It was the urge to do anything, if only to do something. He knew it well.

Below them, in the village of Gesu, the seraqis had lit several large bonfires, with meat cooking on the spits. It was some kind of yearly festival. Althioc had watched it from the cliffs many times in the twenty years he had lived on Seraq, but the sight of the increasing festivity seemed to affect Isydenia more. She stared down at the commotion, frowning deeply.

“I spent forty years on this earth without noting the passage of time and, now, all I see are the coming and going of the seasons,” she said, looking up from the crowd and towards the mainland. It would be invisible to her eyes. “Rolling by like a great, unstoppable wheel.”

Althioc could smell more than see the bottomless grief behind her strange, silver eyes. There was a sudden deadness to her gaze. The wind gusted, sending wisps of her ash-white hair across her pale face. Her breathing hitched.

“In another forty years, it will be as if he never was.”

Her shoulders buckled. Resignation had crept into her voice. That was dangerous, and something that he simply would not allow. He had fought the same despair too many times himself, and he would be damned if his father’s slowness cost him this alliance. Were she his sister, he would take her by the arm and shake her.

“You will see him again, long before then,” he declared. “When we reclaim my father’s throne.”

“When we reclaim it,” she bit out. “And when is that?”

At his silence, she brushed the stray tears that had fallen and began making her way down the hill, towards the village below.

“Perhaps my father—”

He stopped himself. At the uncharacteristic hesitation, Isydenia turned, but only halfway. Her cheeks were reddened by the cold and her own rough sleeves, her figure cutting a stubborn silhouette against the flaming ruby sky of sunset. She set her shoulders again, frowning back at him.

“Perhaps. Perhaps what?”

The mage searched his face, confused. But they were still too close to the King and Queen’s hut. Althioc gestured towards the village below, where the drums had begun. Understanding him, Isydenia followed him down the slope. Once they had reached the village itself, the celebratory dancing was at its height. Morie meat was being roasted and drinks were flowing. Torches had been lit and everyone’s spirits were high. Almost no one noticed them, tracing a path along the edge of the celebration. Althioc took a breath.

“Perhaps my father needs his own eyes in Karahas.”

It was a moment before she dared speak. “You mean yourself.”

“I do.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw her peering up at him. She was shocked.

“I can neither offer nor guarantee protection for someone of significance,” she murmured. “The journey will take us through territory friendly to the Usurper.”

“Then we will have to be quick and clever.”

Beside him, her strides grew lighter. Her purpose had returned. Her voice was brighter when she asked, “And the King? What will you tell him?”

“The truth,” he said, sidestepping a drunk reveler. He raised his voice. “It will not serve our aim to hide it.”

Isydenia nodded. “I suppose you can call it a sort of investigative expedition.”

At the familiarity of the suggestion, he stopped walking. She looked up at him, expectant. The expression quickly wilted.

“Let me be clear,” he began. “Your people and mine share a common purpose. That is all. If I take this journey, I will not be yours to command—or cajole.”

Her silvery eyes glinted. “I see.”

“Speak with one of the captains in port now. There are several here for the festival,” he finished. “We must go before the seas are too rough for a safe return.”

Isydenia nodded curtly and they parted ways, the mage slipping into the jubilant crowd like a shadow. Althioc separated himself from the commotion, eager to be away from the din. As soon as he did, he heard familiar, quick footsteps. He sighed. He should have known.

“Ayari.”

“I wondered how long you would suffer my silence.”

Althioc’s heart shuddered at the unexpected voice. He turned to find not his sister but his father emerging from the shadows, with a woven crown on his head and his finest woolen cloak around his shoulders. The King had come from downwind, leveraged the noise of the festival as Althioc had, and intentionally—masterfully—mirrored his daughter’s footsteps, starkly reminding his son that he was not just a figurehead. In the near distance, the Queen watched them from among the revelers with an unreadable expression. Althioc wondered how long they had been stalking him, but of one truth he was certain: They had heard everything. He braced himself for a swift admonishment. None came.

“You may go to Karahas,” the King said, placing a heavy hand on Althioc’s shoulder. “Besides putting the idea of an alliance with the mages to rest, as I suspect it will, this journey will prevent a schism from forming within our family.”

Althioc gathered his thoughts. “A schism.”

“I know Ayari takes your side in this, and even Allar has begun to doubt my decision to wait,” he admitted. “But I have only now decided to permit it because you never intended to deceive me.”

Althioc thanked the gods that he had spoken as he did. But sharp disappointment bloomed and overpowered his relief. He steadied his voice before speaking.

“I would be very grateful to join Allar on the journey.”

“Allar is the eldest and heir to the throne, yes,” the King went on with a measure of resignation. He lowered his hand. “But it was not Allar who warned me about the Deladaris, years ago. Had I listened to you and Ayari then, our situation might be very different.”

Althioc’s stomach twisted, his throat too thick to speak.

“Do what you must but swear no oaths, in my name or your own,” the King murmured with sobering finality. “And remember that mages cannot be trusted.”

How could I forget. “I will. I do. Thank you, father.”

As the King left his side and rejoined the Queen, a chorus of excited cries went up among the revelers, but Althioc barely heard them. His mind and his intentions were already many miles away, on the shores of Karahas. He had been fighting to return for so long, that he half thought himself standing in one of the visions that mortals had when they slept—a world shadowed yet true. But this was no dream. He had been granted his wish. He was returning to Karahas.

My home. His family’s kingdom and birthright.

He found Ayari night-hunting prized fyerfish among the northern tide pools, and just as eager to return to Karahas as when the mage had first arrived. Her unbridled joy at their father’s concession mirrored what he ought to feel, but for a gnawing disquiet that he could not reason out. The remainder of the night passed in a sleepless, restless haze.

By dawn, Isydenia had secured passage for three on one of the merchant vessels that had made berth for the Seraqi festival, and by late morning they were crossing the western strait. As the craggy outline of Seraq began to soften on the eastern horizon, Ayari came to stand beside her brother at the stern. Together, they watched the isle shrink until the boat began to swing towards the northwest. Then they turned away. Ayari’s jewel-green eyes glistened.

“There is no going back,” she murmured. “You do know that.”

She did not mean that they would never return. She meant that what they were about to do would set things irreversibly in motion. He nodded.

“He is taking us to a sea village just south of Arysdur,” Isydenia announced, stumbling towards them from midship, where she had been speaking with the captain. “We will cut across country from there, and come to Bladmuir from the east. We make port sometime tomorrow night.”

Arysdur? Ayari mirrored his confused look. Althioc gestured north. “We should pass through the Shudderlands. It is the more direct path.”

Isydenia shook her head. “No one uses the northern road anymore, so no ships make port north of Farfal’s Gap.”

“Why?”

“Because it is impossible,” the mage insisted, gripping the starboard railing at an unexpected swell. “Creatures now roam the Shudderlands.”

Creatures.

Ayari cocked her head. “You mean the beasts that come from the other side of the mountains? Fenrir and—”

“And vilbjorn, yes.” Isydenia swayed, glancing between them with a frown. “I thought you knew. You had to have—”

“No,” Althioc gritted out. “We did not.”

His sister raised a hand. “How long has this been going on?”

“For the last few years. The fenrir came first,” the mage offered. “And now we see volmori and arctarth on the northern border of Bladmuir several times a month. Sometimes more.”

Silent rage and utter disbelief rose in Althioc. The Dragars had held the creatures from beyond the mountains at bay for generations, only for their efforts to now be destroyed by a single ruinous king in a mere twenty years. This one dereliction of duty might be enough to rally his father and his father’s allies to war, but he and Ayari would have to see it for themselves. Ayari nodded her blessing.

“Tell the captain to leave us at Farfal’s Gap. We are taking the northern road.”