As he kissed me on the forehead and sent me off to bed, I thought about what it meant to be back here. And then, as I crawled under the covers next to Morio, I realized that no matter how much I loved this house, it was no longer my home. My anchor rested within three men, and my two sisters and Iris. And no matter where we were, as long as we were together, I would be home.
CHAPTER 11
The next morning as we waited for clearance to use the portals inside the palace, we wandered around the Great Hall and I saw just how much of the palace was under renovation. Lethesanar had apparently decided if she couldn’t hold the throne and the city, she’d destroy it before her sister took control. She’d done a damned good job of tearing up the joint, as well as ripping a swath of destruction through the streets. From what I gathered, she’d also managed to kill over a thousand citizens who had switched sides on her.
Houses stood in ruins, buildings gutted from magic, fire, and ramrods. Entire stretches of the city were destroyed and there were a lot of people living on the streets and long lines of the hungry lined up at the temples begging for food.
A stone formed in my heart when I saw that the park stretching around the southern border of Lake Y’Leveshan had been thoroughly trashed. Trees were uprooted and burned, the fountains were in rubble, and the rose gardens and arbors that had been so beautiful every midsummer were shredded. Some of my happiest memories from childhood had taken place in that park, and I cried as we passed. Father patted my shoulder, but said nothing.
Sephreh was going with us. He had some sort of meeting to attend in Dahnsburg. Now, as we waited for word that the portal was ready, he wandered through the hall with Morio by his side. They were chatting about Morio’s connection with Grandmother Coyote.
I glanced around, looking for Iris. She was pacing the left side of the hall, her eyes focused on the ground. I caught up with her.
“Something wrong? You seem awfully quiet this morning.”
She glanced up at me, a haunted look on her face. “I’ve been debating on when—or even whether—to tell you this. You’ve seen more of my past than the others, through the inadvertent glimpse you caught of my shadow the other day.”
Was she ready to talk? I leaned against the wall. “What was that thing? When you ordered it to retreat, you said it wasn’t time yet. Time yet for what?”
A stricken look washed across her face and one tear slid down her cheek. “Camille, what I’m going to tell you must remain secret for now. Please, tell no one else. It doesn’t involve the demons so I’m not asking you to hide anything from your sisters that would concern them.”
I hated keeping secrets, but at times hiding something was a necessary evil. “Sure. I promise, as long as this doesn’t involve our fight.”
She cleared her throat. “The shadow is . . . was . . . my betrothed. That thing was once a noble snow sprite named Vikkommin. He and I were to be married, until something went horribly wrong.”
I stared at her, my disbelief warring with the pain in her eyes. “Your fiancé? But what happened? How did he . . . How could he . . .”
She let out a low moan. “He was a priest in the order of Undutar, and I was in line to be High Priestess. We were to be married. But one night, about a month before our wedding, he called me to his room. I went, of course, and when I got there . . .” Iris’s eyes filled with tears and she covered her face with her hands.
I knelt beside her, my hand on her shoulder. “What happened? Tell me.”
“That’s the trouble! I don’t know what happened. I opened the door, and the next thing I knew, I was bound, behind bars, waking up. They said I tortured him and turned him into that shadow creature. They said that when they found me, I was gibbering like a madwoman, that I told them I hated him. But I loved him! And I couldn’t have done that—ripped away his body and left his spirit embedded in shadow.”
I pulled her close, hugging her, holding her as she shuddered against my shoulder. Her heart was breaking. “You’ve never told anyone this story before, have you?”
She shook her head, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “No,” she said, staring at the floor. “I’m too ashamed.”
After a moment, I gently coaxed her to look at me. “Iris, do you even have the power to do something like that?”
She sniffled. “Oh, girl, I had the power, all right.”
“What happened after you told them you couldn’t remember?”
Iris dashed at the tears but they kept coming. “I protested my innocence. They couldn’t prove beyond doubt that I’d done it. For one thing, Vikkommin—or the creature he had become—disappeared that night, after they dragged me away. But he’s been following me on the astral ever since. I think he believes that I actually hurt him. He never lets me forget it. He wants to kill me and drag me into the shadows with him. Maybe he’s gone mad. I don’t know.”
“Holy hell. Are you in danger?”
“No,” she said, staring at her feet. “Not at the moment. Vikkommin can’t hurt me unless . . . until I return to the Northlands where he’s trapped in body.”
I wanted to be tactful but decided that Iris would prefer me to be myself—blunt and undiplomatic. Someone who gave a damn. “What did the temple elders do to you?”
She closed her eyes, trying to keep her composure. “They tortured me, looking for a confession. I can’t talk about it—it was too painful. And like your sister Menolly, I bear scars both physical and emotional. Mine just aren’t quite so apparent. When I wouldn’t admit guilt, they stripped me of my title and my strongest powers, then sent me back to Finland under a curse. I can never carry a child to term until Vikkommin is avenged. That means either I find out who did hurt him and claim vengeance in his name, or I’ll never have children, never become one of the sacred mothers, never be able to set foot in a temple to my goddess again.”
The Finns were wild about motherhood, that much I knew. In fact, the mothers of their heroes were more important than the actual heroes themselves. To be stripped of her ability to carry a child was a cruel punishment. And to be cast out of her temple, even worse.Angry that anyone would ever believe she’d ever do something that terrible, I clenched my fists. “Why did you come with us today? What are you going to do? Does this have anything to do with Bruce?”
She nodded. “Bruce asked me to marry him and I’d like to. I’ve grown to love him, Camille. He’s a good man, and he’s good to me. But I know he wants children. He’s the last of his family line. He must carry on the family name. Unless I can lift the curse, I can’t—in good conscience—accept his offer. I’m headed to Dahnsburg to look up the Great Winter Wolf Spirit, who spends his summers in the city. He winters in the upper Northlands, high in the mountains near the place where Vikkommin’s shadow retreated. He might be able to help me track down Vikkommin and find out the truth somehow. I’ve tried everything else and this is the only thing I can think of.”
Silently, I took her hand in mine and squeezed gently. “Does Bruce know any of this?”
Looking at me as if I was a candidate for The Jerry Springer Show, she shook her head. “How can I tell him what happened when I don’t even know myself? I have no proof that I’m innocent. My memory seems permanently sealed from the moment I walked into Vikkommin’s room until I woke up in the cell. I’ve tried everything I can to break through the wall but nothing works. The fact that they stripped my title and my strongest powers from me and cursed me effectively brands me as a pariah. And . . .” she paused, her lower lip trembling.
“And what?”
“What if I did do it?” she whispered. “What if some horrible part of me—buried deep inside—took over and tore him inside out? What if I turned him into a shadow? What if I am the one who destroyed both our lives? If I find out that I’m truly a monster, then I couldn’t live with the knowledge. No, best I try to uncover the truth before Bruce knows anything. If I didn’t do it, I’ll be free to tell him everything. And if I did . . .”
I gave her a long look as she stood there, staring ahead at the wall. “Then, what? What would you do?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a strangled voice. “I can’t think that far ahead. The thoughts are too frightening.”
At that moment, my father called to us and Iris quickly wiped away all signs of the tears. I forced a smile as we headed over to the men, but inside all I could think about was what Iris might do if she discovered that she’d been responsible for destroying the man she had loved.
The portal jump to Dahnsburg was like most of the others, but the city was a world apart from Y’Elestrial. For one thing, Dahnsburg was a port city—the western port, to be exact. The smell of brine and seaweed hung heavy in the air.
I sucked in a deep breath, closing my eyes as a crisp breeze swept past. That was one thing I’d loved about moving Earthside to Seattle. We were near the ocean. There was nothing quite as mesmerizing as standing on the pier, watching as the waves of the inlet ebbed and flowed, feeling the call of the Ocean Mother as she filtered into the channels and rivulets that formed Puget Sound.
And here, instead of the Pacific, we stood on the edge of the Wyvern Ocean, a vast body of water that led to the mythic lands of Finnish and Norse repute—the wide woodlands of Tapiola, and beyond that, the fjords of Valhalla and Asgard. And in the far, far north—the lands of Pohjola, which were rumored to contain natural portals leading into the realm of the Northlands.
As we stepped out of the portal, we found ourselves on a butte overlooking the water. The portal itself was set between two standing stones guarded by three Dahns Unicorns. At least, I assumed they were of Dahns descent. Their manes streamed along their backs, and I was surprised to see one of them wasn’t silken as snow, but instead dappled gray on white. All three had silver horns, which meant they were female. Males bore golden horns.
One of the unicorns stepped forward and tossed her head, snorting.
“My name is Sheran-Dahns. You are the Moon Witch, Camille. Correct?” She spoke in Melosealfôr, a beautiful and rare dialect of Crypto that all Moon Witches learned, and that the Dahns Unicorns had perfected over the years.
I inclined my head and gave a quick curtsy. “I am. This is my father, Sephreh ob Tanu, Advisor to Her Royal Highness Queen Tanaquar of Y’Elestrial. And this is my mate and husband Morio, and my friend Iris.”
The unicorn blinked and her long lashes fluttered in the wind. She had the most lovely eyes—brilliant green against the dappled coat, and they were like twin pools of a verdant pond. With a soft whinny, she dipped her head in my father’s direction and spoke in the common tongue. “Your Excellence, we welcome you and your party to Dahnsburg. King Upala-Dahns awaits you in the palace. Please to follow me.”
Morio looked at me, slightly confused. He spoke a few words of the common tongue—I’d taught him enough to squeak by, but he wasn’t fluent in it yet. I whispered a quick translation to him.
We swung in behind the unicorn as she lightly picked her way down a sloping path. The gentle decline ran four or five hundred yards from the city proper, parallel to the shore below before swinging inland. There were few trees on the butte, or near the shore. The city was situated in the Silofel Plains, a long, narrow stretch of land that was dotted with tall grasses and egg-sized pebbles and sandy soil. The Plains buttressed up against the Windwillow Valley. Dahnsburg itself was positioned on the Bay of Tides.
The morning was overcast and by the looks of the water, a storm was coming in from the ocean. Gray thunderheads swept in from across the sea, driving a force of wind before them that churned the breakers, sending a frothy surge of waves crashing to shore. Electricity crackled through the clouds, saturating the air.
I sucked in a deep breath of the supercharged air as a ripple of sparks surged through my body. At times like these, I missed this world, where everything was so vibrant and alive. Oh, the clouds and the land were alive over Earthside, to be sure, but here they were right in your face, and there was no denying the sentience of the elements.
Morio reached for my hand and I squeezed his fingers. He flashed me a giddy grin.
“You can feel it, too,” I said, delighted.
He nodded. “The first time I was here, it wasn’t so present. Perhaps because we were in Aladril. But here . . . on the edge of the ocean . . . I feel if I just closed my eyes I could see the Elementals dancing around one another. Everything is so vivid.”
“Vivid is good,” I said.
Father glanced at us. He’d caught what we were saying and now he winked at me and smiled. In that brief moment, I could tell that he was glad I was home. He must be lonely. Right then I decided that—war or no war—my sisters and I had to find him a wife. He needed someone, and though I cherished my mother’s memory, Father needed to move on. To open his heart and his life again.
At that moment, we reached the gates of the city. Dahnsburg was well-fortified. To the north, it faced the Wyvern Ocean. The other three sides were surrounded by large stone walls, with turrets evenly spaced around the top of the walk wall. Each of the three walls had its own gatehouse with a portcullis ready to drop in case of invasion.
“Do you get many threats here? You aren’t very close to Darkynwyrd or Guilyoton.”
Sheran-Dahns glanced back at me.
“No,” she said, her voice lightly trilling over the words. “But there are plenty of Cryptos who roam the Windwillow Valley with nothing but darkness in their hearts. And there are trolls in the Nebulvuori Mountains who travel this way. Thistlewyd Deep lies to the east, and while not as dangerous as Darkynwyrd, the blessed woodland harbors those both good and ill. The ill-tempered often come to see what trouble they can stir up in the city. And then there are the Meré who attempt raids from the ocean.”