The Elder Blood Chronicles Bk 1 In Shades of Grey (48 page)

Lutheron glanced over his shoulder and gave a
slight shake of his head. “The longer we are out here in the open,
the more of a chance you will die, Charm. They choose to live like
wolves and no one buries a wolf,” Lutheron spoke with finality, and
it was clear that he had no intention of changing his mind, so
Charm let the matter rest. He wasn’t happy about leaving the scouts
untended, but he wasn’t in the position to argue either.

“Where are we headed?” Charm asked after they
had walked a short distance. To him, it seemed the best course of
action would be to return to Fionahold and hand over the body as
well as their report. Lutheron, however, appeared to have other
plans.

“To Eldagar where you finally get to
understand why you are here,” Lutheron replied, an enigmatic smile
on his face.

“The fortress city?” Charm asked in surprise.
Eldagar was the only landmark of consequence left in Gaelyn. The
city had outlasted by centuries the House that had built it. It had
stood solid against siege after siege, and finally it had been
treachery and poison within their own house that had ended the
Gaelyn Bloodline. As far as Charm knew, the commons had kept
Eldagar as their center of commerce in Gaelyn, and the city was
thriving.

“The path of carnage is leading directly to
Eldagar. If I’m correct in my guessing, the city has already
fallen. So we will soon find out how stealthy you really are. You
keep saying you are better in a city, so I’m sending you into a
city. We need to know if the creatures are there,” Lutheron
answered, his pace never slowing, his tone never changing.

“How am I supposed to know if they are there?
They can’t be seen, apparently, and they have no scent,” Charm
objected.

“I suggest you look for dead people. They
don’t seem to be too discriminating when disposing of their
victims,” Lutheron replied.

“Wonderful,” Charm sighed. He gazed up at the
stars and wondered briefly if this was Lutheron’s idea of
punishment for being a Guardian. Well, if he truly was the Divine
of Fear, he was getting a lovely bit of the emotion now.

“Once you have scouted the city, return to
the Fionahold to report, I will see you as far as the city walls
and then there are other matters I must attend to,” Lutheron
said.

“You are leaving me there alone?” Charm tried
to keep the dismay out of his voice. At this rate, by the time he
returned to the Fionahold he would have no dignity remaining to him
at all. “What other matters could possibly be more important than
invisible man-eating creatures swarming over Gaelyn,” he demanded,
trying to sound as steady as possible.

Lutheron chuckled, a sound that Charm was
quickly equating with humiliation. “While I have been
discriminating in my actions since being locked here, others have
not. I go to tend to matters involving my fellow Divine’s gift upon
this world.” Apparently sensing the questions on Charm’s lips, he
continued. “War has sired a line, and one of the children of that
line will need assistance. I will say no more on the matter.”

“What should I tell Caspian when I return? He
will expect you to be with me,” Charm protested. Dignity aside, he
wasn’t too fond of the idea of being left in Eldagar. It was a
feeble attempt to be sure, to try to play on Lutheron’s sense of
duty, but it was the only option he saw remaining.

Lutheron gave him a reassuring smile that
grated on Charm worse than any of his laughter had. “You will be
fine, Charm. You are the best rogue that I’ve seen since I’ve been
here and I have been watching closely. If I remained with you, it
is assured that we would be caught. While I am a Divine, even we
have limitations. I am powerful, but not all-powerful, and sneaking
is not my strong point.” His voice was calm and his smile gentle.
Charm hated both.

He gave a slight nod in response and remained
silent. It wasn’t like him to be this nervous, and he had never
been afraid to work alone. It was the idea of an enemy that he
couldn’t find that had him so unmanned. It was like Hemlock on a
larger more terrible scale. To know death lurked nearby, and no
possible way of knowing where it was. He gave a deep sigh, pulled
his flask from his pocket, and took a long pull. For the first time
since the barrier went up, he found himself wishing he carried
something other than water in the flask.

“If we go south any farther, we are going to
be in Nerathane and the dragons don’t exactly welcome visitors,”
Shade pointed out. They had come to a stop on a small rise between
the old forest and the thick growth of the new forest.

“Rivana is our best bet,” Leah said, speaking
for one of the few times she had since they had left Sanctuary. The
woman’s mood had seemed dark for most of the journey, and Jala had
decided it was best simply to let her be. Leah was not the sort you
gave a hug and asked if she wanted to talk.

Finn gazed around the forest, his eyes roving
hungrily as if a path would present itself if he searched long
enough. “We are a good ways south of where we came in,” he pointed
out and gave a long sigh. “I don’t care for the thought of
provoking the dragons either, so Rivana it is, I suppose.”

Jala remained silent, simply watching them as
they debated. Her companions had a much better grasp of the
situation here. While she was learning about the various cultures
in the Academy, she hadn’t believed dragons actually existed. She
knew Nerathane’s monarch called herself the Queen of Dragons,
rather than Lady Nerathane, but she had thought it simply a title,
not literal truth. From the way they were speaking, she expected a
fire breathing monster to break from the forest any moment.

“Whatever we are doing we best do it soon. We
spent a lot of time getting this far south, and we have barely
three hours of daylight left,” Wisp said, her gaze on the new
growth where the souls of the dead were supposedly bound. Since
Madren had spoken of the walking dead, Wisp had regarded the trees
with a mixture of dread and respect that bordered on
fanaticism.

“Rivana it is then,” Shade said with
resignation. “This far south we should come out near the border of
Nerathane as well,” he added and kicked his horse into a slow trot.
Wisp quickly moved her own mount up beside his in order to earth
craft the worst of the tangle from their path.

“Have you ever seen an actual dragon?” Jala
asked Finn as they moved to follow, her eyes locked on the southern
sky.

Finn gave an amused snort. “A few times. They
are large, bitchy, and horribly arrogant. Rather like a High Lord
with scales,” he replied.

“It hardly seems fair that you should fault
anyone else for arrogance,” Shade called over his shoulder.

“Its confidence that I project, Shade, you
simply don’t have enough experience with either to tell them
apart,” Finn shot back.

Jala rolled her eyes and silently prayed to
Fortune for anything that would keep them from bickering. “I’ll be
happy to get back to Sanctuary,” she sighed.

You and I both, this forest is damned.

Jala started in her saddle and looked around
quickly for Marrow; she hadn’t seen the Bendazzi in so long that
she had given up searching for him. “Where are you?” She asked in a
low voice. Finn glanced her direction but apparently realized who
she spoke to and went back to watching their path.

To your right, by the stand of oak. The
game here is wrong, tainted.
Marrow moved from the oaks as he
spoke, his coat reverting back to the white and silver as he
moved.

“I missed you,” Jala admitted with a smile as
he moved to pace alongside her horse. Fortunately, Valor had chosen
well when he bought the gelding and a single snort of distaste was
the only reaction the beast gave to the Bendazzi’s presence.

“Welcome back,” Finn said quietly to the
Bendazzi. “I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you.”

I followed the witch for a time. She hunts
the borders and shows no interest in four-legged game,
Marrow
told her, and from Finn’s nod he had spoken to him, as well.

“He says the game here is tainted,” Jala told
Finn. She had spent a good deal of time watching for any signs of
life, and so far had not even seen a squirrel.

“Not surprising. This place seems damned all
the way around,” Finn replied with a shrug. He kept his mount’s
pace slow, allowing the others to draw ahead slowly. She remained
in the back with him and gave him a curious look. “I don’t care how
cryptic the witch’s words were, I know your intelligence. You have
it sorted out by now,” he said in a low voice.

“I do,” she admitted and paused considering
what to say. They all deserved an explanation, but Anthae’s words
about Betrayer’s blood had her nervous. She knew Finn’s father
served House Avanti, but Finn himself showed allegiance nowhere.
“It was not at all what I expected,” she added lamely, still not
finding the words she needed.

“And it has you upset. I can feel your
nerves. You are hiding it well, but you have been quite worried
since you left the cottage.”

She gave him a rueful smile and sighed.
“Rather hard to hide things from you.”

“I wish you didn’t think you needed to. Ask
me whatever you like. I’ll answer you in truth. I have nothing to
hide. There are a lot of things that I have done that I don’t like
to admit to, but nothing I won’t admit to,” Finn replied.

“What kind of trouble did you get into in
Avanti that forced you from home,” she asked with a raised eyebrow,
hoping she could get away with changing the topic for now

“I bedded Cassia, and her father walked in
during the last bit of it. Probably would have gone better if I
would have stopped when he walked in, but Cassia hadn’t noticed him
and I was close to finished.” he grinned and gave a shrug. “You
know how Valor says, ‘live without regrets.’” He gave a snort of
amusement. “Bedding her was one of my few regrets, but I was
sixteen and wasn’t thinking with my mind at the time. She is very
pretty on the outside. It isn’t till you get to know her that you
realize she is a venomous bitch.” He glanced at her and gave
another chuckle. “You are staring at me as if I just admitted to
murder.”

Jala cleared her throat and quickly fixed her
expression. She nodded slightly and remained silent. It wasn’t so
much the thought of Finn with Cassia that had shocked her, but the
surge of jealousy at the thought of him with another woman. This
was ridiculous, for to her he had confessed to bedding nearly every
barmaid in the whole bloody city of Sanctuary. To feel jealous of
Finn’s sexual exploits made as much sense as being angry that the
sky was blue. “Well, I could see how that would cause difficulty,”
she said at last her, tone perfectly neutral.

He laughed loudly enough to cause Wisp to
turn and regard them from her vantage in the lead. Jala waved back
to the Fae with what she hoped was a reassuring smile and turned a
glare to Finn. “I don’t see what is so funny.”

“You are jealous,” he pointed out with a
great deal of amusement.

“I have absolutely no reason to be jealous,”
she objected, trying to convince herself as much as him.

“Regardless, you are jealous of something I
did ten years ago,” he pressed.

Jala gave him an annoyed look and turned back
to the rough path. “Ridiculous,” she said with a sniff.
At least
she had succeeded in changing the topic,
she mused. Although
given the present line of conversation, it was possible that
talking about the witch would be preferable.

“Not long after Cassia and my ordeal there, I
moved on to Firym as I told you. They are not nearly as prickly
about such things in the Scarlet Jungle. In fact, they are rather
open about it, and I was somewhat exotic to them, so, needless to
say, my bed was seldom cold. And the women, my god you should see
them. Almost all of them are red heads and with such curves.” Finn
mimicked a very robust female figure with his hands and let his
voice trail off sounding far away and dreamy. He let out a long
sigh as if in longing. “There aren’t many women like that in
Sanctuary. You can get a Firym girl to do things that a city girl
wouldn’t even…”

“All right, I was jealous,” Jala snapped,
cutting him off before he could continue. “I don’t know why I was.
It’s hardly rational, but I was, and your talk about the perfect
women of Firym really isn’t helping,” she added, her voice rising a
bit with the last.

Finn broke into peals of laughter and leaned
hard against his saddle horn. He turned to look at her, his grin
full and showing perfect white teeth. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist
teasing you. The Firym women are really not that perfect. In fact,
they are quite mean if you get down to it. Bossy too. Don’t ever
argue with a Firym,” he said through muffled laughter. “I don’t
think anyone has ever shown jealousy over me before. Not that I’ve
noticed, anyway. It’s rather endearing, really. I doubt any woman
has ever actually cared enough to be jealous. If I lost interest,
they moved on.” He had calmed his laughter but his grin was still
there.

Jala gave him a dry expression. “Most likely
they were jealous and you simply didn’t notice or care,” she said
stiffly.

His grin softened a bit and he gave her a
wink. “I noticed you were, that has to count for something,” he
pointed out.

She rolled her eyes at him and tried to
ignore his smile. It wasn’t fair that someone should have so much
natural charm. If she truly worked at it and focused on nothing
else she might be able to stay irritated with him, but it simply
wasn’t worth the effort. “That does count for something,” she
agreed finally.

“It counts for a lot, actually. Normally, I
would have bedded you and moved on by now,” Finn replied
easily.