Gaven drew a deep breath. “I remember him the way he was before our last descent,” he said. “Healthy, maybe seventy, still vibrant and strong. Not much older than I am now, I suppose.” He’d been taller than Gaven, and more slender, but they had the same hair. The same large hands, and the same laugh. Once, when laughter came more easily to Gaven.
“Your brother has been running the household,” Rienne said.
“Good for Thordren,” Gaven muttered. “And I suppose his mark’s a greater mark now?” Thordren had only just taken his Test of Siberys the last time Gaven saw him.
“I believe so, yes,” Rienne said. “He’s grown into a fine young man, Gaven. You shouldn’t begrudge him his success.”
“You’re right, of course. He and I just chose different paths in life. He chose to follow our father and run the family business, and I rotted in thrice-damned Dreadhold for twenty-six years. And look how successful we’ve both been at our chosen careers!”
“Gaven-”
“No, I’m sorry. I was being stupid.”
“To Stormhome, then?” Rienne craned her neck to look back at him, a smile on her face.
“To Stormhome.”
She gave the horse a gentle kick, and they rode like the wind.
CHAPTER 37
When Gaven and Rienne reached the Thrane river, they knew they had left Breland. The Treaty of Throne- hold had defined borders between the once-warring nations, but those borders were fluid and inexact things, and they mattered most when they were crossed by roads. Riding overland as they were, it was nearly impossible to tell that they had left one nation and entered another.
They avoided a large city, Sigilstar, situated along the river, and passed quietly through several small villages spaced about a day’s travel apart-a day of riding on a cart pulled by oxen, that is, not a day on the back of a horse magebred for speed. On the third day, the river widened gradually, slowing from its headlong rush to a much more leisurely pace and finally coming to rest in one of the branches of Scions Sound, once the heart of the Five Nations. The warm breeze carried the smell of the sea, and the abundance of songbirds signaled that spring had well and truly come to this part of Khorvaire.
They spent the afternoon visiting shops. Rienne kept a careful eye on her stores of coin, knowing that House Kundarak had probably blocked her credit by that time. She bought Gaven a sword, new clothes, and a coat with a high collar that concealed his dragonmark. She replenished their supplies of journeybread, preparing for more long days of travel. That night, they enjoyed a comfortable inn in the small town of Sharavacion, the largest settlement they had dared enter since leaving Vathirond.
“Did you see the docks on the sound as we rode into town?” Rienne asked as they settled into their room.
“What about them?”
“Their size, mostly. This place might not be a bustling metropolis or a center of high culture, but it sees some shipping trade.”
“Hm.” Gaven leaned back in a chair and rested his hands on his belly, feeling comfortably full and quite tired after a pleasant meal down the street.
“I’m thinking there’s some chance we can hire a ship here to take us to Stormhome. Maybe even a Lyrandar galleon-I might still have a favor I can call in.”
“That would be good.” Gaven closed his eyes and put his hands behind his head. He liked the thought of riding on a ship, especially a fast ship, rather than spending any more time on horseback.
He heard Rienne sit down on her bed and sigh. “Gaven?” she said.
“Hm?”
“What do you think Haldren and Vaskar are doing now?”
Gaven opened a sleepy eye and cocked an eyebrow at Rienne.
“Because you were talking the other night about becoming their nemesis, bringing their plans to ruin. I know that might not be the destiny you want to pursue, but I was just thinking about… well, what happens if they succeed?”
“I don’t know what they’re doing,” Gaven said, looking up at the ceiling. “They didn’t exactly inform me of all the details of their plans while I was with them. And when I saw Vaskar in the Sky Caves-well, we were too busy trying to kill each other to make conversation.”
“I understand that,” Rienne said.
Gaven thought she sounded a little testy, and he wasn’t sure why.
She sighed, and when she spoke again her voice was quieter. “I’m just scared, I guess. Scared that Haldren will plunge us back into another century of war. Scared that Vaskar really will become a god, or gain the power of one.”
“I don’t think Vaskar will succeed. There’s too much he doesn’t understand, and he didn’t learn anything from-”
Gaven stopped abruptly as words and images rose unbidden in his mind.
The words of the Sky Caves, woven thick with meaning…
The words he had studied in his draconic existence…
All flowing together with images from his nightmares.
The earth splitting. A colossal eruption of blinding light-a ray of Khyber’s sun, a shard of the Dragon Below’s might.
The hordes of the Soul Reaver emerging from the depths where they have long hidden in the darkness, unafraid of Khyber’s cold light. Pouring forth from the cracks in the earth, swarming over the plain that lies in the sunset shadow of the mountains of stars.
Tearing into the soldiers massed there, shrieking and howling.
Soldiers cursing and hacking and dying. Fires in the sky and raging across the plain.
A clash of dragons signals the sundering of the Soul Reaver’s gates…
Dragons fighting dragons…
… dragons wheeling in the sky…
… a clash of dragons…
… the armies gathered on the plain.
Dragons…
… Storm Dragon…
“Gaven?”
The images faded.
He lay on the floor of the room, where his chair had deposited him when he leaned too far back. Rienne was on her knees leaning over him, a look of concern mingled with fear on her face. Her hand stroked his cheek, brushing the hair back from his forehead, presumably checking him for fever.
“I’m all right, Mama,” he said, trying to smile.
She clearly believed neither his words nor his smile. “Here, let me help you to your bed. Oh, Gaven, I let you do too much before you were fully recovered. You need to rest.”
“I’m all right,” he repeated, but he accepted her help in lifting himself onto the bed, and lay down again as she commanded. He chased the last fragments of dreams and visions as they scurried away from the rigidity of consciousness.
“What happened?” Rienne asked. “Did you faint or just slip? I didn’t think you were leaning that far backward.”
“Shh, shh.” Gaven whispered. “I need to dream some more.”
“Sleep is a good idea.” Rienne’s anxious fluttering transformed in an instant into soothing ministrations. She lay a blanket over him, stroked his hair softly, hummed an old tune that echoed the grief of wars long past.
