Legacy of light, p.23
Legacy of Light, page 23
“What are these?” he asked, scanning the detailed depictions.
Briggs looked up as if noticing he had company for the first time. “I already explained the first one.”
Rissa kicked off the tree and strode forward. “To me, old man. You didn’t tell my brother.”
Briggs looked confused for a moment before pushing up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the symbol tattooed on the inside of his wrist. “There are three of them, sigils, that must work together to balance the magic. We need all three to bring it back.”
“Each represents a member of the Tri-Gard,” Lonara explained. “The mark Briggs wears means dark magic.” She pointed to the second symbol he’d drawn. “Mine is light magic.” She pointed to each symbol inside her sigil in turn. “Light. Harmony. Fate. Magic.”
Briggs looked to her in alarm. “We’re missing earth.”
She put a hand on his arm to calm him. “We will get to him.”
He shook his head violently. “Ramsey was in league with the dark king.”
She smiled weakly. “We can’t completely blame him. We too, stole the magic. In the end, it did not matter that we were saving Dreach-Sciene from destruction or that we were forced. Ramsey was protecting his daughter. Love is the greatest force in the world. Greater than hate. More influential than fear. With it, we are flawed. Without it, we are nothing.”
Trystan met Rissa’s eyes. His love for Davi prevented him from fulfilling his promise. If Davi hadn’t taken his own life, it would’ve put the people of Dreach-Sciene in jeopardy. There was no doubt in his mind he would’ve saved his friend at the expense of his kingdom.
Rissa’s cold eyes were too much. Too real. Too painful. He turned on his heel and walked back the way he’d come, his footsteps fading away as fresh powder filled in the evidence that he’d been there, the proof that he’d cared.
Rissa’s grief threatened to pull him under the current of his own despair. Hardening himself, he climbed to the surface until all he felt was an emptiness and a fierce determination.
Because all he had now was this mission. He couldn’t save his friend, his brother. He refused to let his people suffer the same fate. For he was Toha. He was their protector, their light in the darkness. When he had no hope himself, at least he could give some to them.
That’s what he was born to do.
The light blinded Rissa as it pushed through the clouds and bounced off the clean white snow in front of her. She shielded her eyes with a hand and glared across the landscape before them.
“We should stop here to rest.” Trystan’s teeth chattered as he spoke.
Steam drifted in front of her face as Rissa huffed out a breath. They were getting nowhere. They’d been trudging along in the mountains for almost two weeks. She’d thought they’d have left for Dreach-Dhoun by now, but they had to wait long enough so Briggs wasn’t traceable to every seer.
He’d used his magic twelve days ago and Lona still said the traces clung to them.
Rissa didn’t care. All she wanted was a Dreach-Dhoun soldier to hit.
It didn’t help that it’d been so cold for days. They couldn’t travel far without stopping, lest they freeze to death.
“I’ll get to work on a fire,” Alixa said.
“I’ll help.” Trystan shot a look at Rissa and she averted her eyes.
How could Trystan act like everything was normal? She saw the way he followed Alixa. Davion was dead and Trystan continued to flirt.
Edric dug in his pack as Avery tied up the horses. After the fight, they’d only found three of the horses that had ridden off—meaning Rissa’s feet screamed with every step. But she didn’t stop. She passed Lona and Briggs, who paid her no mind as she continued up the path.
Snow drifted from the sky, catching in her eyelashes. She blinked, and the snowflakes fell to her cheeks where they melted instantly, almost as if they were tears. She hadn’t cried since it happened. Crying meant it was real. It would serve as the final dagger twisting in her gut.
It had happened. Of that, there was no doubt. But there was a difference between knowing someone died and the crushing realization that they were truly gone.
The road bent around the corner before moving farther up the mountain. Rissa stopped and stepped off the side of the road onto the narrow strip between the well-trod path and where it dropped off.
It could’ve been the edge of the world.
The air was hazy with falling snow, obscuring the long drop off the cliff. She imagined there was a road down there or something of the sort. She shuffled forward so her toes hit the cliff. Fear surged through her, but she didn’t move back because it proved she could still feel something.
It was better than the emptiness inside her. She’d tried to fill it with anger. That worked when she didn’t think about it too much.
She closed her eyes as a frosty blast blew her hair from where it stuck to the damp skin of her neck. Her fingers rubbed the pendant at her throat.
“Tell me how to get through this, Mom,” she whispered.
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she jumped back and whipped around. After pulling her knife free, she threw it at the bank of snow on the other side of the road. Leaping towards where it dug in, she tore it free before plunging it in again. The tip hit ice, the impact reverberating up her arm.
She stabbed it again.
She’d never known her mother, and she focused her anger on that. For so long, Davi had been the sole recipient.
But she couldn’t maintain an ire towards someone she didn’t know. Before long, it came back to Davi as it always did. He’d left her.
She collapsed into the snow, letting the cold freeze her heart.
She didn’t know how long she stared into the swirling sky before Alixa blocked her vision. Her coat was pulled up to cover the bottom half of her face, but her eyes shone with disapproval.
When she spoke, the fabric muffled her voice. “You’re going to freeze out here.” She planted her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes.
“Go play keeper to someone else.” Rissa’s lips trembled with the cold.
Alixa never listened to anyone. She sat down. “I’ve lived in these mountains most of my life, Ri.”
“Don’t call me Ri.” Only two people ever had—Trystan and Davion—and she couldn’t bear to hear it anymore.
Alixa kept going. “You don’t want to be caught too far from your fire when the sun goes down during a snowstorm.”
Rissa shrugged.
“I’m serious. You’ll die of cold.”
“I don’t care.”
Alixa jumped to her feet. “Rissa Renauld. Get your princess butt out of that snow right now. I know you’re hurting. We all are. That doesn’t mean we can forget why we’re here.”
“Haven’t we already forgotten? All we’re doing is wandering around these mountains.”
Alixa crossed her arms. “I won’t ask you again. Stand up. You will come back to the fire that Trystan and I have put our every effort into starting. I, for one, don’t want to die before we take that bastard in Dreach-Dhoun with us.” She reached a hand down.
Rissa had no more fight in her. She took the hand and pulled herself to her feet before following Alixa back down the path.
Before they reached the others, Alixa stopped. “Rissa, you know I’m here, right? We didn’t exactly start on the best of terms, but I know what it’s like to lose your best friend. My maid—”
“Davi wasn’t my best friend,” Rissa cut in. “Most of the time we couldn’t stand each other. He was annoying.”
“But you loved him.”
Rissa looked away.
Alixa sighed. “If you won’t talk to me, you should at least talk to your brother. You’ve both done your best to avoid each other, but maybe you need him. I know for a fact he needs you.”
Rissa pushed past her. “I don’t need anyone.”
She rejoined the others before Alixa could respond. Avery handed her a tin mug of tea as she sat. The flames warmed her face, but that heat didn’t permeate the skin. On the inside, she was just as cold as she’d been before.
As night descended, a silence stretched between them, broken only by the roar of a mountain cat in the distance. Lona’s sad eyes burned into her as Briggs tried to goad her into conversation. She ignored him and leaned against her pack. As she closed her eyes, she imagined Davi’s laughter cutting through the tension of the night.
The crunch of snow had Trystan shooting up from where he half dozed beside the fire. He rolled sideways to grab his sword and sprang to his feet just as the sound of clashing swords reached his ears. After running towards the commotion, he came to a stop, the sight before him sending a shock through his system.
Two Isenore soldiers had found their camp, but Lonara fought them fervently. Her magic wasn’t the weapon she chose. Instead, she blocked and parried with a long, thin sword that gleamed in the early morning light.
Her movements were swift, sure, as she moved gracefully.
“Help would be appreciated,” she called to Trystan.
He snapped out of his momentary daze and jumped into the fray.
“King Calis is going to gut all Dreach-Sciene scum,” one of the soldiers snarled.
Trystan grunted as he shuffled his feet and pushed his opponent so his back was against a tree. “All I hear is blah blah, I’m a bloody traitor.”
It was something Davi would have said and Trystan found his smirk dropping.
Lonara knocked her soldier’s sword away and swept his legs out from under him. He landed with a thud, the tip of her sword pressed to the hollow of his throat.
“Are there others?” she asked.
Trystan forced his opponent to drop his weapon and kept him pinned to the tree. After a few moments, the soldier stopped struggling.
“We won’t tell you anything,” he growled before spitting in Trystan’s face.
With his hands occupied, Trystan couldn’t wipe the spittle away, and it dripped down his face as the Isenore traitor grinned.
Trystan slammed his knee into the man’s gut, eliciting a grunt of pain. “How many know where we are?”
The man shouted curses at Trystan rather than giving him any answers.
Suddenly, he went quiet and jerked before he slumped in Trystan’s arms. An arrow protruded from the side of his head.
Trystan let him fall to the ground and wiped his face as the twang of another loosed arrow sliced through the air. He turned slowly, knowing what he’d find but hoping he was wrong.
“Rissa Renauld,” Lonara shrieked as she stood over the dead soldier at her feet. “What is the matter with you?”
Rissa stepped from where the trees hid her and shrugged as she fingered her bow. “They wouldn’t have told you anything.”
Trystan marched over to confront his sister. “What if we have a whole troop of soldiers after us?”
She met his glare unflinchingly. “They were traitors. They deserved to die.” Her voice was devoid of any sign of life and Trystan shrank away from her. That was not his sister. She wasn’t cold, heartless. Not Rissa.
Lonara shook her head. “I would expect a daughter of Marissa Kane to have something inside her head besides air and anger.”
The sorceress trudged by them without another word.
How was Trystan supposed to help his sister when every part of his soul was broken as well?
Rissa wasn’t the one who’d broken the promise to prevent Davi’s capture. Trystan put a hand on the nearby tree to steady himself and closed his eyes, trying to rid his mind of the images that plagued him every day. Davi knocking the soldiers away from Trystan. Davi struggling to break free. The acceptance entering his eyes. His pleas for Trystan to fulfill his promise.
“Ri…” He opened his eyes but stopped when he saw her standing over the dead men, not a flicker of emotion on her face.
“We’re going to kill them all.” She plucked at the string of her bow. “Dreach-Dhoun is going to run red.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. There was nothing he could say to fill the hole inside of her.
“We need to get moving.” He turned and walked back towards the others, leaving behind the girl he no longer recognized.
Where was his sister?
They packed up their few supplies and hit the road once again. The day was slightly warmer than the one before, but the world was still bathed in white.
Trystan blew on his hands and sped up to match Lonara’s stride. Her long-sword was strapped across her back.
“So,” he began. “You can fight.”
She nodded shortly. “How do you think your mother learned?”
“I wasn’t aware my mother knew any of the Tri-Gard.”
“Dear boy, there is so much you don’t know.” She paused almost as if considering how much she should tell him. “Your mother was like a daughter to me. Her death was the greatest tragedy of my long life.”
He scrunched his brow. How could a member of the Tri-Gard think one person’s death was worse than the tragedy she’d forced on the rest of the kingdom? “If you loved her so much, why did you choose a different side in the war?”
It was her turn to look confused. “I fought for Dreach-Sciene. For your mother. I forsook my sacred vow of neutrality to protect her. What happened later—draining the magic—that was forced upon me.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Can you tell me about her? My father rarely speaks of her… almost as if he wants to forget.”
A smile warmed her dark face. “Marcus Renauld would never forget. A love that strong would not fade. I’ve never seen anyone else like Marissa and Marcus. I helped raise the girl, but your father brought her to life. Even though it was for too short a time. They were beautiful.”
He didn’t ask any more questions after that. Trystan had never completely understood his father. There was a part of the man that had always been closed off, held back. Now he realized that maybe that part died with his mother.
Trystan had very few memories of her. Just the occasional image of a woman who looked very much like Rissa.
Having someone with him who’d known her was almost like having his mother with them, watching them.
As soon as they stopped traipsing across the mountains and found a village, he’d send word to his father. The news about Davi would hurt him as well. He’d loved him as a son from the moment he’d brought him home. But knowing Trystan and Rissa were still okay might bring him some comfort.
That night as the fire thawed the icicles that had grown along his cloak, he sat silently beside his sister. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t move away either.
They’d get through it. Together. And then they’d get their revenge.
Chapter 2
Someone was coming.
Trystan swore under his breath as he tried to conceal himself behind the snow-laden tree stump he’d been resting on.
They were almost on top of him. He’d been wallowing so much in his worry over Ri, and his need to be alone for a few minutes to pull his head together that he hadn’t heard them until now. After the attack days before, he should have been on high alert and wanted to kick himself for letting them be found. Again.
Whoever was approaching wasn’t any of his people. He’d left their Eastern camp before sunrise, his dreams still too haunting to allow sleep. These sounds came from the West. Someone else was making their way through the Isenore mountains, and with the way lady luck had been taunting them lately, it was more likely foe than friend.
The sun rose at his back. That was in his favor at least. The shadow cast by the background of trees would hopefully keep him hidden while he observed the newcomers. A few soldiers he could handle if he took them by surprise. Even without Lonara’s help. A regiment was a whole other story.
The quiet neighing of horses and the occasional snapping of a twig were the only signs of their approach, but Trystan’s fingers tapped silently against the hilt of his sword, readying for battle. His heart thumped against his ribs, and he tried to calm his frazzled energy. If Davi were here, he would have made some stupid joke by now to break the tension. But Davi wasn’t here. Ri’s accusatory glare reminded him of that every time she looked his way. His stupid desire for solitude had left him alone in the woods against the unknown, imminent threat. He no longer had his brother to watch his back. That harsh realization only fueled his anger instead of his fright, and he began to hope it was enemy soldiers. Nothing like a battle to take the edge off one’s anger.
It didn’t take long for the horses to make their way through the sea of dead trees. The sun’s rays highlighted the steel blades of two men flanking the women on horseback. The men were soldiers, their uniforms hidden under snow speckled furs, but Trystan swore he caught a glimpse of the Isenore colors and his grip tightened on his blade. The last group of Isenore soldiers had tried to kill them. This was not looking so good.
He would have attacked already if it weren’t for the women. The young girl and the older matron were no soldiers. He could tell that, even from afar. Their postures in the saddle were perfect, and their furs of the finest quality, despite the well-worn look. Nobles. Trystan stayed hidden a bit longer, his curiosity piqued. What the hell were nobles doing this far up in the mountains?
“Are you sure we are going the right way, Anna?” The older lady’s voice floated through the quiet, the refined tone bringing with it the familiarity of court. No, she definitely was not a soldier.
“Yes, Mother. The aura of magic is waning, no doubt, but it still shows me the way. We are getting closer to the magic wielder. May we stop so I can concentrate?”
The older lady motioned to the soldiers and all four horses came to a halt.
Trystan could hardly believe his eyes as the young girl lowered her cloak and breathed deeply as if she were trying to draw in the magic’s very essence. Understanding set in. This girl was a seer, drawn here by Briggs’ magic. Alarm stiffened his spine. Who was she?
Before he could react, a stealthy form shifted quietly from the shadows at his back and crouched by his side.
